LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITE© STATES OF A 






> 



J 



REMEDY 



OK 



Existing Evils, 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 



By JUDGE S. D^J. MOORE, 

A Graduate of the United States Military Academy, West 
Point, New York, of the Class of 1837. 



NASHVILLE, TENN. : 

A. D. HAYNES, PRINTER, 49 SOUTH MARKET STREET 

1879. 



■■>) 6- 



iR E M E D Ym* 



FOR 





SOCIAL J POLITICAL, 



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/ 



&r 



AND NECESSARILY 



Preyeutiye of all Conflicts Between Capital and Late. 



By Judge S. D. J. MOORE 



* Graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., of the 

Class of 1837. 

(uvo.J±U£/£ 

NASHVILLE, TENN.: 

ress if W. S. Bailey, 109 South Cherry Street, 
1879. 



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ITT 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year A. D. 187'J, 

LAtV B y Judge S. D. J. MOORE, 
In tiie office of the Librarian of Congress. Washington, D. C. 
All rights reserved. 



OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN. 



After a most searching examination of the work, Governor 
Seymour, of New York, says: 

''It is novel, ingenious, and philosophical." 

Governor Chapman, of Alabama, says : 

" Besides setting forth the remedy and preventive of evils, 
it soars far above the ordinary publications of the day in its 
attractiveness, its originality, and profundity of thought." 

To the same effect is the opinion of Judge East, a leading 
lawyer of the Nashville Bar. 

The venerable Judge Caruthers, President and Law pro- 
fessor of Lebanon University, of Tennessee, says : 

"Every statesman, lawyer, and voter ought to read it; ev- 
ery student ought to read it, and adopt it as a text-book were 
the course of studies not so much crowded. I would advise 
every one to procure a copy and read it." 

Rev. Dr. Shipp, of the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 
agrees with Judge Caruthers, and thinks the work should be 
studied in institutions of learning, and if embraced in his 
course of instruction would adopt it as a text. 

Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, says: 
" Great good must result from the publication of the great 
truths so ably set forth." ■ 

The learned and venerable P. S. Fall says: 

" It is a work of unspeakable value to the world." 



DEDICATION. 



TO HON. HORATIO SEYMOUR, UTICA, NEW YORK. 

In that model of biographies, The Life of Agricola, Tacitus 
informs us that a love of fame is the incentive of noble minds. 
However that may be, in the work now dedicated to you, the 
prize sought is the most glittering and seductive that any one 
impelled by a love of fame, and inspired by an ambition hon- 
orable and noble could covet. 

To whom could such a work be so becomingly dedicated as 
to one who, in defiance of a public opinion which if depraved 
was never more potential, refused to disrobe himself of the at- 
tributes that would alone entitle him to honor and distinction 
for the sake of office, and yet who,aftersuch an exhibition of true 
greatness, finding the road closed to all who aspired to be- 
come public benefactors could, in the spirit of a noble philan- 
throphy, emulate the example of the self-sacrificing Howard, 
who, in the language of Burke, " made a voyage of discovery, 
a circumnavigation of charity to collate distresses, to gauge 
wretchedness, and to take the dimensions of human misery." 
Above all, to whom could one so becomingly as to yourself, 
dedicate the work of a lifetime, and a labor of love, for the 
amelioration of the condition of the human race, the exaltation 
of humanity through some governmental contrivance where- 
by government should be made to subserve the purposes de- 
signed by the Benignant Being who ordained government. 
For, since the preservation of the social state is essential to 
perpetuate the race, while to its exaltation civilization is es- 



DEDICATION. 

sential, to these ends God ordained government in the ab- 
stract. Yet, however constructed in the concrete, money is 
essential to conduct its operations; and as it earns none it 
must take it out of the pockets of those who do. Hence 
the power to levy and collect taxes is indispensable to 
all governments. To advance in civilization, however, 
or even to maintain one's place in its ranks, money is no less 
essential than to conduct governmental operations. So that, 
when government takes so much of the earnings of others as 
to leave them not enough to advance in civilization or to 
maintain their places in its ranks, they are thrown beyond 
its pale, and become, to all intents and purposes, outlaws, as 
mendicants, criminals, and lunatics. Mendicancy, crime and 
insanity are the social evils in which all others may be sum- 
med up. 

It is plain then to be seen that the evil's to be remedied are 
to be traced to an abuse of the taxing power, and since from 
the public oppression thence resulting, results also its 
concomitant, the private injustice by which the wealth and 
money of the country are concentrated in the hands of the 
few, producing conflicts between capital and labor, it is plain 
to be seen that the conflicts to be prevented are^ also to be 
traced to an abuse of the taxing power. Hence, the most 
important and as all experience shows, the most difficult prob- 
lem ever presented by civilization for governmental solution 
is : How so to limit and restrict the taxing power as to pre- 
vent its abuse? In the solution of this problem consists the 
remedy proposed. It could be readily applied, would do no 
one injustice, would impair no one's rights, and is fully ade- 
quate to all the ends designed. Will it be applied 1 1 once 
thought the bare suggestion of such remedy would insure its 
speedy application. But aside from the want of personal 
independence so conspicuous in the public men of the day, 1 
fell into the same error that had misled the good and the 
great of the ages who, standing on the platform of the human 
philanthropy, sought to ameliorate the condition of the race 



DEDICATION. 

and exalt humanity through some governmental contrivance. 
But, however ably devised there was always found 
one thing wanting — a motor power. How and where was 
this motor power to be found ? 

The preservation of the social state is essential to the per- 
petuation of the race, while to its exaltation civilization is 
essential. To perpetuate, however, requires the power to 
create, which is omnipotent power. It follows that higher 
sanctions than can be found in mere human laws are es- 
sential to the preservation of the social state, and as these 
can be found only in religion, the individuals composing the 
social state must have a religion that commands their confi- 
dence and inspires their faith, and as these individuals de- 
velop civilization, civilization when developed, must be a reflex 
of their religion. Hence it is, in ignoring these higher sanc- 
tions, lexicographers and elementary writers, the most astute, 
have given us only explanations instead of a definition of civiliz- 
ation. Hence, too, in ignoring these higher sanctions philan- 
thropists have failed to exalt humanity. 

The definition of civilization, here for the first time given, 
is not only logically correct ; but its correctness is verified by 
human experience, as seen for example in the diverse civil- 
izations of the Jews and Romans so nearly corresponding to 
their different religions. From the definition of but few 
words do results more important flow. For if the religion we 
profess commands our confidence, inspires our faith, our civiliz- 
ation would progress ad infinitum, with an intellection constantly 
expanding a material and moral condition, constantly im- 
proving, because accompanied by blessings temporal and 
spiritual — temporal blessings in a material prosperity that 
would ere long through a christian civilization bring about that 
happy period of which inspired men have delighted to speak. 
Because, if the religion which we profess commands our con- 
fidence and inspires our faith it is because it is a remedy for 
sin, and if a remedy' for sin it must be for all evil, because 
sin is the source and origin of all the ills to which flesh is 



DEDICATION. 

heir. So that the question, Will the remedy be applied ? de- 
pends upon the question Does the religion we profess really 
command our confidence and inspire our faith ? If so that is 
the motor power sought. 

To a solution of this question we must rise from the plat- 
form of the human to that of the Divine philanthopy. Those 
who stand on that platform will accept the philosophic explana- 
tion of the statesman who assigns the causes showing we are 
in common with all civilized peoples, and have been for years, 
in the midst of a transition period, proclaiming the efetism, 
to a greater or less extent, of institutions hitherto and at 
present existing, and realizing the low estate to which we are 
reduced by comparing our civilization as it is, to what it should 
be, will admit such periods severely test peoples and institu- 
tions, and that through them few if any pass in safety. 
Not only so, they will see in the moral and political phenom- 
ena which so lamentably characterize our times, followed by 
a frightful increase in mendicancy, crime, and insanity, the 
operations of a principle of retributive justice, planted and 
deeply planted by an All-wise and All-powerful Being in the 
moral and political world, and which for every act of vice or 
folly never fails, sooner or later, in some shape or other, to recoil 
upon its authors. And hence they will not only recognize we 
are in the midst of a transition period but that a day of retribu- 
tion is at hand, and unless arrested terrible must be the reck- 
oning. Hence, too, as they will see in the development of a 
civilization that embodies the principles and illustrates the 
sublime precepts of the religion they profess, a performance 
of the obligations imposed for the material prosperity in the 
temporal blessings covenanted by Jehovah, they will add 
works to the faith inspired by the religion that commands 
their confidence, and will be for the remedy in the recon- 
struction proposed ; the more especially so, for on examin- 
ation of the same they will find it is but a rendition govern- 
mentally to God of the things that be God's, as well as to 
( \i\sar of the things that be Caesar's. But in the midst of 



DEDICATION. 

perils which it is impossible to magnify it is so natural to 
strive to inspire hopes for the future from the glories of the 
past, but which when such hopes have been realized in their 
full fruition, as is the case with us materially considered, all 
such efforts must prove vain and futile, may we not hope that 
directed by divine wisdom, our country-men will let "the dead 
past bury its dead.'' and having sepulchred in a common but 
honored grave the glories and the hopes of the past, with 
clean hands and pure hearts, will approach the altar of their 
country, where so often in the historic past, have worshiped 
the mighty dead, and upon that altar place the great measure 
of deliverance and liberty in the reconstruction proposed. 

To the consummation of a measure so devoutly to be de- 
sired may I not invoke the name and fame of one who, as a 
ruler commanded the cheerful obedience and unfeigned respect 
of his countrymen, and who as a citizen having won still re- 
tains their affections ; of one who, having lived long has lived 
so well that in age he receives the greatest of earthly blessings, 
as honor, love, obedience, and troops of friends throughout 
the land, and as evidence of the sincerity of one of them, if 
not for its merits, you will please accept the dedication of 
this work as the highest tribute I can offer to genius, to worth, 
and to a patriotism that adds to a love of country a love of 
liberty. THE ATJTHOE. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

The announcement of such remedy, the author is well 
aware, will be met with skepticism and doubt; not only be- 
cause such efforts have hitherto failed, but because, owing 
to the predominance of our selfish over our social feelings, 
failure is considered inevitable — a foregone conclusion. 
Whereas, it is such predominance of the selfish over the 
social feelings alone that makes such remedy possible, instead 
of impossible, as generally supposed ; and it is in such pre- 
dominance alone that exists the necessity for such remedial 
agency, as the author will now proceed to show. 

To show, then, that such remedy is possible, let us suppose 
the selfish and social feelings were in equilibrium ; then it 
would depend upon circumstances whether man acted upon 
his own volition, or that of others. 

Now let us suppose the social predominated over the selfish 
feelings ; man would then be at the bidding of others. In 
neither case could there be any free agency. "Where there 
is no free agency, there can be no responsibility ; and where 
there is no responsibility, no obligations can be imposed; and 
of course, where no obligations can be imposed, no remedial 
agency can be enforced or applied. So, that, it is only because 
man is more selfish than social that any such remedial ageney 
as is proposed becomes either necessary or possible. And 
here the argument might close in favor of the possibility and 
necessity of the remedy proposed. But what is still more 
conclusive to show such remedial agency, as proposed, is not 
only possible but necessary, is the fact that God ordained 
government as an instrumentality through which the selfish 
feelings should be so restrained as to preserve the social state, 
which is essential to man's continued existence, and to foster 
or develop civilization. Grod could not have ordained an im- 



PKEFACE. 

possibility. But the skepticism, or doubt, is not against the 
possibility of an ordinance of God in the abstract as govern- 
ment is; but such skepticism or doubt is, as to the possibility 
of putting such instrumentality in practical operation, so 
that the evils proposed to be remedied shall not be engen- 
dered. Such, the author frankly admits, has hitherto been 
impossible. But because such has hitherto been the result, 
it does not necessarily follow that such result is inevitable, or 
that such result is right. On the contrary, to say that evil 
necessarily results from an ordinance of God would be to 
make Him the Author of evil, which is impossible. Hence, 
then, as evil does not necessarily inhere in such instrumen- 
tality, it may be eliminated therefrom ; at least to such ex- 
tent, that the beneficent results, designed by Him who or- 
dained government, may be realized ; and in a reconstruction 
of that instrumentality, for such purpose, consists the remedy 
proposed. 



REMEDY FOE EXISTING EVILS, 



AND NECESSARILY 



Preyentiye of all Conflicts Between Capital and Labor. 



In order to prescribe a suitable and adequate remedy, one 
must understand the nature and character of the disease, its 
location, and the causes which have engendered the disease. 
That defective government is the cause of political evils ; that 
political evils produce social evils, engendering disease in the 
social state and the body-politic, resulting in a diseased civil- 
ization, as seen in the evils sought to be remedied, and the 
threatened conflicts sought to be prevented, I will now pro- 
ceed to show, treating in 



CHAPTER I. 

OF GOVERNMENT. 

What, then, is Government? Government is an instrumen- 
tality ordained of God, for the preservation of the social state, 
in order to perpetuate the race and to foster and develop civ- 
ilization. 



14 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

In order to show the nature and character of the civilization 
developed under existing governmental institutions, and how 
developed, I shall treat in 



CHAPTER IT. 

OF THE CIVILIZATION OF THE XIX CENTURY. 

Man becomes the creature of .civilization on account of the 
attributes or endowments conferred upon him by his creator. 
He is a moral being because he has conscience, a sense of right 
and wrong. He is an intellectual being because he has rea- 
son ; and he is a physical being because he has bones and 
muscles, and thews and sinews. From these he derives hopes 
and aspirations for an improved condition — a higher mode of 
existence; for, in a word, civilization. This requires physical 
exertion — labor. So that labor as a necessity, whether recog- 
nized as a penalty or not, is aknowledged, felt. At the same 
time becomes manifest a desire to evade, so far as possible, 
this admitted necessity. The only mode of evading which, 
however, is by exploitation upon the labor of others. Car- 
ried out to its final results, this, without restrictions or limita- 
tions, would lead to intolerable oppressions of the weaker 
by the stronger and more powerful, and in fact to the destruc- 
tion of the social state. And, as this state is essential to the 
perpetuation of the human race, unless prevented, man 
would relapse into the barbarian condition foregoing civiliza- 
tion or perish. To preserve the social state, and to enable 
man to realize the civilized condition or mode of existence, 
God has ordained Government to hold in check his selfish, 
which predominate over his social feelings. Hence man is a 
social and political being. Being ordained of God, Govern- 
ment is not a matter of choice with man, we may, therefore, 
conclude the civilized state was designed for man by the Au- 
thor of his being. But while he has thus endowed man and 
ordained such an instrumentality as government for his use 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. ' 15 

to enforce the sanctions of the duties He has enjoined, He 
has also deeply planted in the moral and political world a 
principle of retributive justice that never fails, sooner or later, 
for every act of vice or folly to recoil upon its authors, Un- 
der these circumstances, and subject to these conditions, is 
commenced the career of civilization. In its progress the 
first class found unable to continue the struggle, or who are 
thrown hors de combat, are the poor or mendicants. And to 
this extent government has failed in it mission, for if not 
exclusively so, this disposition to appropriate or exploitate 
upon the labor of others is the main cause of such failure, 
the only exception being those who from imbecility are inca- 
pacitated to continue the struggle. For this disposition is 
prompted by the selfish feelings which it was designed govern- 
ment should check and control. Hence, for this reason, the 
moral sense if not shocked is at least offended, and hence 
they are not left to perish by the wayside, but are placed un- 
der the care of the government. But those who are mainly 
responsible for this failure are those who control the govern- 
ment and not only those who seek to exploitate upon other*, 
but also to live themselves by the government, for with the 
very inauguration of government begins a struggle as to who 
shall live by the government, and who shall support the govern- 
ment. Of course, then, the government would be burdened 
as lightly as possible in providing for this class, and their 
wants and necessities circumscribed within the narrowest 
limits. And as the struggle continues their numbers increase, 
while their condition sinks lower and lower until finally they 
become degraded. From degraded beings the ranks of crim- 
inals are recruited. For if poverty, though in itself no crime, 
degrades, and crime does no more, where is the difference ? 
Hence those in a degraded condition, from poverty, will run 
the risk of perpetrating crime, for if detected they sink no 
lower ; and if undetected may rise above the condition to which 
poverty has so unjustly consigned them. And this class is 
strongly re-inforced by another, class who find themselves 



16 ' EEMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

hopelessly and unjustly sinking into a like condition of the 
first class that will risk the perpetration of crime to keep 
above such degradation. For if unpunished they will succeed, 
and if punished their condition will be no lower than- that to 
which poverty would certainly consign them ; for since pov- 
erty degrades crime can do no more. 

However it may have been in other countries certainly in 
the United States the increase in numbers of the second class 
became so rapid the moral sense was thereby shocked. Then 
a strenuous effort was made to extend the school system so 
as to place the means of a limited education within the reach 
of all, upon the ground that ignorance was the parent of vice. 
This, however, failed to accomplish the objeet desired, and 
then sprung up the demand for penitentiaries as reformatory 
institutions. But every effort so far has failed, and signally 
failed. Worse still, so great has been the wear and tear, the 
harrassing cares and anxieties to continue the struggle and 
escape the catagory of either of the classes named, that we 
find institutions all over the land, until recently unknown, 
called "Insane Asylums," and a third class called "Lunatics," 
while many, in order to avoid either of these catagories, 
abdicate humanity — commit suicide. Various causes have 
been assigned as producing results so deplorable. Most gen- 
erally it is alleged to exist in a want of material prosperity, 
and that may be and probably is the proximate cause; but. 
in .a country like England, however great her prosperity, the 
masses do not advance in civilization, because all the profit* 
earned at home and abroad go into the pockets of her aris- 
tocracy. To a limited extent they are shared by the so-called 
gentry, an inferior aristocracy; but to the masses, the millions 
of her population, all is denied above a meagre subsistence for 
a life of unremitting toil and industry from the cradle to the 
grave; and if unable to toil the only alternative is want, des- 
titution, starvation. 

The real cause of the disordered and abnormal state of 
things, resulting in a diseased civilization, of which social and 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. IT 

political evils are the exponents, is to be seen in the abuse of 
the taxing power of the government It matters not how con- 
structed, with what powers clothed, to conduct its operations 
money is essential. As it earns no money it must take it 
out of the pockets of those who earn it, and to this end, since 
government is essential to the preservation of the social state 
and to the development ot civilization, man, as a social and 
political being, can not object if the amount be necessary to 
supply its necessary and legitimate wants, and if the sums tax- 
ed be fairly and equitably assessed, collected and disbursed. 

But money is no less essential to continue the struggle of 
civilization than to conduct governmental operations; and all 
who fall short of the amount needed for this purpose are con- 
signed to one or the other of these classes named, become 
outlaws and are left without hope and without God in the 
world. The cause, to which all others are subordinate and 
insignificant, of the mendicancy, crime, insanity and suicide, 
thus degrading and brutalizing humanity, is to be seen in the 
abuse of the taxing power, whereby more of the earnings of those 
who earn the money are taken than is necessary to supply the 
legitimate wants of the government, leaving not enough in the 
pockets of those who earn the money to continue the struggle 
of civilization. I shall, therefore, proceed to make good this 
assertion by treating in 



CHAPTER III. 

OF TAXATION AND MONEY, 

We have seen government was ordained of God to preserve 
the social state, in order to perpetuate the race, that the con- 
dition of the race might be exalted through the development 
of civilization ; and that to conduct governmental operations 
and to advance in civilization, or even continue the struggle, 
money is essential. If, then, government, through the taxing 



18 KEMEDY FOE EXISTING EVILS, 

power, leaves not enough in the pockets of those who earn 
the money, for such purpose, the very end and object for 
which government was ordained are defeated, and in defeat- 
ing the beneficent results designed by the Benignant Being 
who ordained it, government becomes a curse instead of a 
blessing. To prevent such abuse of the taxing power under 
our system of. government it is considered taxation and repre- 
sentation should go together; that is, that those who pay the 
taxes should vote, and in this right of suffrage it was believed 
would be found a guaranty against the oppression and injus- 
tice resulting from an abuse of the taxing power. To test the 
correctness of this opinion it becomes necessary to ascertain 
vjho pay the taxes. The only accretion of wealth to a com- 
munity comes from the products of the soil, and these are the 
results of labor. So it would seem, labor in the last analysis 
pays the tax, because without an accretion of wealth there 
can be no material prosperity and without material prosperity 
there can be no money, and no money no taxes for taxes are 
money levied or collected. And so Mr. Webster must have 
thought in saying "Labor was the source of all prosperit) . 
and therefore it was the duty of government to give labor 
encouragement and protection and not to destroy it. Then, 
if labor pays the tax and those who pay the taxes alone 
should vote ii follows irresistibly that laborers alone should 
vote. This, however, would be manifestly unjust; for the 
industries, and they alone, create wealth. It follows, then. 
as to put the industries in operation requires a combination 
of labor and money or capital (as money in such case is 
called), there can be without such combination no accretion 
of wealth; and if this be true, and there can be no mistake 
about it, instead of a representation of persons upon 
principle that taxation and representation should, go togeth- 
er, the industries the great and leading interests of society 
including capitalists and laborers, should be represented. 1 
know it will be urged as a control over a man's living is vir- 
tually a control over his actions such a representation would b# 



SOCIAL -AND POLITICAL. 10 

virtually only a representation of capital. That is to say, 
unless the laborer voted as the capitalist in whose employ he 
was, the capitalist would say to the laborer his services were 
no longer desired. There is no doubt such power has been 
cruelly exercised, especially by monopolists. But let us 
take one thing at a time. 

I am not now discussing the question as to how contracts 
between employers and employ ees should be regulated, nor 
the rates of wages. The question is to see how the power of 
rotation by the government is abused, and if possible how to pre- 
vent such abuse. I assert, however, such abuse on the part of 
employees may be prevented; but of this hereafter. It is 
not in this way the capitalist will seek to promote his interest 
through the abuse of the taxing power of the government. 
He will seek through the taxing power of the government to 
promote his interest at the expense of some other interest 
or interests. 

For example, the manufacturing capitalist will seek the 
enactment of laws creating an increase of the customs, taxes, 
or dues, upon all such articles as he manufactures; because 
he knows whether it be the producer or consumer some one 
pays the increased taxes, and thereby he is enabled to sell 
his goods at an enhanced price. Not only so, he pockets all 
for which he sells his goods, paying nothing to the govern, 
ment, and that while others are supporting the government 
he is living by the government, which has become to him a 
money-making machine. To accomplish this result he will 
aid the government in breaking down all barriers intended 
for the limitation and restriction of the taxing power to pre- 
vent its abuse. 

I am not making these statements to show what a man will 
do because he is a capitalist, or has money, for so long as our 
selfish predominate over our social feelings, such will be the 
result, unless prevented; and if the laborer who complains 
was in his shoes, he would probably clo the same thing. Not 
only so, rulers are but men, are more selfish than social, and 



20 KEMEDY FOE EXISTING EVILS, 

therefore they will bring the power and patronage of the gov- 
ernment to bear on office-holders, for the consummation of 
such oppression and injustice, for so doing they are not only 
increasing their revenues, but augmenting their power. And 
it follows clearly and conclusively if, with a representation of 
persons the taxing power can be, it will be, so long as our sel- 
fish predominate over our social feelings, so perverted as to 
promote one interest at the expense of another. 

If representation is to be made to accomplish what it is de- 
sired it should, then the interest or industry at whose ex- 
pense such laws are enacted should be represented to pro- 
tect itself. 

A representation of interest would be better than a represen- 
tation of persona, there can be no doubt. Such abuse of the 
taxing power it is that has given currency to the sayings 
"power is always stealing from the many to the few," and 
that " government may be compared to that elementary 
power in mechanics, the screw, which holds all it gets and is 
always ready for a new revolution to acquire more." 

It is, however, through the artificial industries that disas- 
trous results from the abuse of the taxing power maybe more 
clearly seen, and owing to discoveries and inventions of a 
more recent date, such industries have become numerous. 
Let us take the discovery of steam-power in its application to 
travel and transportation through railways, constructed by 
the concentration of capital in chartered companies called 
"corporations." It is true, as alleged, they have greatly en- 
hanced the price of lands through and contiguous to which 
they pass, but while the enhanced prices increase the taxes up- 
on such lands they were not thereby made more productive. 
But it was alleged in the facilities thus furnished for the 
transportation for the products of these lands to more distant 
markets and these enhanced prices, there would be found 
ample compensation for any damage the owner of the lands 
might sustain, and the increased taxes he would have to pay. 
Instead of which it is alleged such enhanced prices and more 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 21 

have been consumed in transportation charges. And this I 
presume in many instances is true. And where efforts have 
been made by the great agricultural interest, which is the 
greatest sufferer, to prevent such injustice, amounting in many 
instances to extortion, it is said through the power and influ- 
ence of their concentrated capital these corporations have 
sougbt to influence elections for the purpose of controlling 
the law-making power, and have even, as it is alleged, tam- 
pered with judicial officers ; that through their influence men 
in high positions have betrayed the most solemn trusts, con- 
fided to them by an honest constituency, and laid their coun- 
try's glory and honor in the dust. And now what? How is 
this to be explained ? From my standpoint the explanation 
is easy ; that the people bargained in good faith for cheap trans- 
portation and enhanced prices there can be no doubt, nor is 
there in my mind any doubt as to the good faith of the other 
side — the corporators. 

But owing to the abuse of the taxing power the country 
has become impoverished so that when corporators of rail- 
way companies formerly sold thousands of tickets they now 
sell only hundreds, if so many. No money — no material 
prosperity, people must stay at home. The Corporators, as 
was natural, have sought to protect their interests, and of 
course wanted to protect their labor. But under the blight- 
ing influence of the abuse of the taxing power, paralyzing the 
industries and pauperizing the people, production is so little 
in excess of consumption, consumers outnumbering pro- 
ducers, that we may say production has ceased. So that 
even then powerful corporations, with all their concentrated 
capital, have been sold out ; many having passed into the 
hands of receivers, while those surviving have been forced to 
curtail their labor and to reduce the wages of that retained 

to starvation prices, so that the laborer has found his burden 
insupportable ; and hence, ignoring existing institutions," the 
laborers in frenzied excitement for redress have, in some of 
the States, appealed to force which has resulted in what in 
the slang of the day are called strikes. 



22 KEMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

Strikes are conflicts between labor and capital, and unless 
some corrective be applied we may hear the future audibly 
announced in the conflicts of the recent past. Hence, we 
hear railway companies denounced as monopolies, upon 
which have been conferred exclusive privileges for the benefit 
of the few at the expense of the many. If this be true it is 
of itself not only a powerful but conclusive argument against 
a system of representation that would aid to visit such oppress- 
ion and injustice upon the people, especially the laborers, 
who, if not the exclusive, are by far the greater sufferers. 
Put all expected, and had a right to expect, a material pros- 
perity unparalleled; instead of which, however^ we have 
been reduced, and in this way, as well as through numberless 
others, to a poverty represented through the abuse of the taxing 
power, and let it not be forgotten. 

Of such abuse comes the public oppression and of the 
public oppression Rev. Dr. Wayland, President of Brown 
University, R. I., says: " It drinks up the spirit of a people 
by inflicting wrong through means of an agency which was 
created for the sole purpose of preventing wrong ; and which 
was intended to be the ultimate and faithful refuge of the 
friendless." When the antidote to evil becomes the source of 
evil what hope for man is left ? When society itself sets the 
example of peculation what shall prevent the individuals of 
that society from imitating that example? Hence public 
injustice is always the prolific parent of private violence. 
The result is, that capital emigrates, production ceases, and a 
nation either sinks down in utter despondency, or else the 
people harrassed beyond endurance and believing their con- 
dition can not be made worse by any change, rush into all the 
horrors of civil war ; the social elements are dissolved ; the 
sword enters every home ; the holiest ties which bind men 
together are sundered, and no prophet can predict, at the 
beginning what will be the end." 

I do not agree with Dr. Wayland, that a people like ours, 
so long accustomed to so large a liberty, and until a very re- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 23 

cent period blessed with a great and solid material prosperity, 
will sink down without resistance into a condition of despond- 
ency. Such would naturally be the result in England, and in 
European countries, where the people in passing froni feudal- 
ism or from domestic servitude, passed into a condition of po- 
litical servitude, which all know, the world over, is worse 
than domestic servitude. They will resist the public oppres- 
sion, but whether successfully or not by force, is another ques- 
tion. But having justice and right on their side, if they will 
put these in the concrete peaceably, as they have it in their pow- 
er to do, in the remedy proposed, they would in so doing 
achieve the grandest victory in its results for the amelioration 
and exaltation of the race the world has ever witnessed ; not 
excepting that announced by that celebrated state paper The 
Declaration of Independence, which was made good by our 
final victory at Yorktown; and I say to the millions with 
whom I sympathize, justice and right are truth, and truth is 
indestructible, but truth in the abstract is of little or no value 
practically. And as all are not in the habit of abstract rea- 
soning as the matter is of transcendant importance, because 
the difference between life and death is not greater than be- 
tween truth in the abstract and truth in the concrete, I will 
illustrate my meaning : Let us then, take for illustration 
steam power ; that is a truth, for you can see it when you put 
a vessel with water in it and a top on it to boil; steam will 
raise the top. But of what use ? It is a truth, and truth is 
indestructible. But it is of no practical value in the abstract, 
yet, when through the devices and contrivances of the steam 
engine, you put it in the concrete and apply it to purposes of 
transportation and travel, to diversify pursuits, and to multi- 
ply industries, it becomes the most potential power that man 
can wield in the material world. So when justice and right* 
are put in the concrete, as hi the remedy proposed, to pre- 
vent the abuse of the- taxing power, you will be enabled to 
exert and that peaceably, the most potential power in the po- 
litical world within your grasp. So heed not to your destruc- 



24 KEMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

tion, though sorely oppressed, eulogies however numerous, 
however splendid, in favor of truth in the abstract, in prose or 
poetry, such as " The eternal years of God are hers; Though 
crushed to earth 'twill rise again," unless you are in your folly, 
madness, and infatuation prepared for self-sacrifice — follow 
-not the clamor of faction, the shout of fanaticism, if you do, 
you are doomed to fall. For while I do not agree . with Dr. 
Wayland as stated, and for reasons stated, I foresee, looking to 
the future as dependent upon existing causes, that there will 
be strikes, and the first of a formidable character, as matters 
now stand, will be between railroad companies and their em- 
ployees. On behalf of their corporations when these con- 
flicts occur, the government will interfere if needs be, with 
the strong arm of the military power under the pretense of 
law and order, life and . property. Other laborers will not 
unite with them, and these railroad laborers will be crushed 
out in detail, and if others did join, subsistence as well as men 
are necessary to achieve success ; and what could they do 
without bread, without mcney ? Thus defeated, the people 
might sink down in hopeless despondency. They would prob- 
ably be disfranchised. And the people themselves, through 
terrible oppression, might be brought to place but a low esti- 
mate upon what our ancestors considered of inestimable value ; 
for what would political rights amount to, if they could not 
guaranty against starvation ? 

Yet there is a danger of civil war as Dr. Wayland suggests, 
not only on account of the public oppression as he suggests ; 
but anon, on account of its invariable concomitant, the pri- 
vate injustice by which all the money and the wealth of the 
eountry is concentrating day by day, more and more, in the 
hands of the few, impoverishing still more the millions, and 
that too, through the abuse of the taxing power ; and pre- 
aenting a picture of avarice, of wealth, of ambition, groveling 
and meanly selfish, fearful to contemplate, because so well 
nigh impossible to resist. Such a state of things in all coun- 
tries where the people have not been completely degraded 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 25 

and brutalized evokes sooner or later all the fiendish passions 
of our nature, and woe ! woe! ! to the land where these pas- 
sions burst into a conflagration ; for then will 

"Naked rebelliou with its torch and axe, 
Make its wild sport of our blazing homes till 

Anarchy comes down on us like night, and 
Massacre us in our eternal graves." 

It is in the midst of perils impossible to magnify, fortunate 
perhaps, that we can not, and if we could, perhaps it would 
not be wise to lift the veil that shrouds the future. 

The extraordinary juncture at which we live demands not 
only all our wisdom and patriotism, but the guidance of the 
unseen hand directed by the divine wisdom. Very certain it 
is institutions hitherto, and at present existing, have become 
ejfM&, and that great and radical changes are demanded. 

The remedy herein proposed would be a response to the de- 
mands thus created, could be readily applied, would impair 
no oil e's rights, would do no one injustice and would prove 
fully adequate to the ends designed. Yet the evils to be rem- 
edied have fastened upon the body-politic and social state or 
society, a disease of the most malignant and loathsome char- 
acter, which has become so deeply rooted and wide spread, 
that it has imperiled the life of the nation. It has culmi- 
nated in an indebtedness, public and private, almost universal 
and demands the most heroic treatment. There is to an hon- 
est pride of character, nothing more mortifying than debt. A 
man may be* lion-hearted, but debt muzzles the lion ; he may 
be eagle-eyed, but debt pinions the eagle to the dull earth, 
though there is a sky to soar in and a sun to gaze upon. It has 
destroyed the usefulness of the ablest and best of men ; when 
rivited upon a people, such is its tyranny, it never fails to con- 
sign them to a condition of utter and hopeless despondency — 
their minds become dwarfed, imbecile, idiotic insane, while 
their bodies become as putrid and festering as if fastened 
upon by the small-pox or leprosy , and strands them upon the 
bosom of the dead, dead sea of despotism where death lives 
and life dies. Such and so great are the calamities visited 



26 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

upon a people upon whom is rivited an universal indebtedness, 
through the abuse of the taxing power. Who can doubt that 
the words pronouncing "the love of money, the root of all evil,'' 
were inspired! And this presents the question, what is 
money? Money is the measure of values fixing the prices of 
all merchantable articles and exchangeable commodities, if 
it subserves its legitimate purpose, as dependent as nearly as 
possible upon the supply and demand of such articles and 
commodities. Such a measure should be sound and stable, 
and as fulfilling the required conditions to the best advant- 
age the precious metals, gold and silver, by universal consent 
have been selected. 

Gold and silver never were a circulating medium, at least in 
modern times, for in the early days of modern civilization 
these metals, whether in the shape of bullion or coin, were 
deposited in banks at commercial centers and paper certifi- 
cates of such deposits were used as a circulating medium 
with bills of exchange. As these deposits were frequently un- 
called for for years, this suggested the idea of issuing such 
certificates when no such deposits had been made, for the 
purpose, not only of increasing but also of concentrating 
commerce . where these banks of deposit were established. 
And this suggested the idea of banks of discount whose 
paper in superceding the necessity for gold and silver in their 
localities extended the use of certificates and bills of exchange 
for commercial purposes to the extent the precious metals 
were represented by them in such localities. 

But the history of such banks has been a history of fail- 
ures ; and in their failures have involved the people in their 
localities, and especially the laboring class, in distress and 
ruin. Because the gold and silver represented by the circu- 
lation of their paper and extending through additional cer- 
tificates and bills of exchange, commercial transactions had 
to be withdrawn from commerce to fill up the vacuum cre- 
ated by the failure of such banks. Hence, every financial 
revulsion resulting from such failures has been followed by 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 27 

commercial disaster, paralysis of the industries and destruc- 
tion of labor. It is no argument in favor of the national 
banks to say they do not fail ; so much the greater pity. The 
reason they do not fail is to be seen in the amount of their 
exploitation, to use the mildest term, upon labor, getting 
something for nothing, the banks having to all intents and 
purposes the power to tax — a power conferred exclusively 
upon the government and most unscrupulously abused by 
them. And by way of illustration, let us take the report of 
the retiring president of the First National Bank of Indian- 
apolis, Indiana. He shall speak for the national banks, and 
here is what he says : 

• I congratulate the officers and stockholders of our enteiv 
prise. The bank has been in operation 14 years under my 
control, with a capital stock of $500,000. In the mean time, 
it has voluntarily returned $500,000 of capital stock back to 
its stockholders besides paying them in dividends $1,496,240, 
part of which was in gold ; and I now turn it over to you 
with a capital unimpaired and $327,000 of the undivided 
earnings on hand. To this may be added the premiums of 
United States bonds at present prices, amounting to $36,000, 
besides quite a large amount for lost or destroyed bills.' " 

Let us see how the profits look : 

Returned to stockholders' capital $ 500.000 

Dividends to stockholders 1,496,250 

Undivided earnings 337,000 

Premium on bonds 36,000 

Lost or destroyed bills 24,000 

Total $2,383,250 

Only two million three hundred and eighty-three thousand 
two hundred and fifty dollars in fourteen years ! Who paid 
these enormous earnings to this one bank? The farmers 
and the mechanics in the end paid three- fourths, possibly 
the whole. How long can the people tolerate this system of 
money-making? How long will it continue to abuse the 
patience of the tax-payers ? 

The immediate relief imperatively demanded and so essen- 
tial to the life of the nation, would be afforded by discharg- 



28 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

ing the government bonds in the greenback proper. Under 
the theocratic government the great lawgiver, Moses, re- 
quired every seventh year a release of all indebtedness. He 
said release not grudgingly, while every half century lands 
reverted to the original owners or their descendants — the 
Jew in fact could sell his land only for forty-nine years. And 
then our bankrupt laws in modern times are also considered 
wise and just. But the settlement of the bonds if wholly 
unjust, which it is not, is demanded by a necessity that 
knows no laws ; it is necessary to preserve the life of 
the nation. Thus, while lifting an insupportable burden 
from the backs of the people, there would be furnished 
a sound and stable currency that would put the industries 
now paralyzed in successful operation, giving employment 
to labor. Not only so, it would unfetter commerce, mak- 
ing it all-pervading so that ere long commerce would 
form the golden circle of the globe, binding the nations of 
the earth together in the bonds of peace, and there would be 
achieved the victories of peace, for peace has her victories as 
well as war. And more: it would be a peace inaugurating 
the golden age which lies before and not behind as falsely 
supposed, and to which an unfettered commerce is an indis- 
pensable prerequisite. It would give to that section hitherto 
the center of the artificial industries an opportunity to add to 
the splendid eulogy of Burke upon her people another achieve- 
ment that not only does " every climate bear witness to her 
toil while every sea is vexed by her fisheries," in every mart 
of the commercial world may be seen specimens of her skill 
and handicraft. How much better this than a policy pro- 
voking competition that must if persevered in deprive her of 
a market at home and abroad ? The life of the nation de- 
pends upon the preservation of the social state or society. 
As to the proper course to be pursued no higher authority # 
could be asked or desired than Edmund Burke, and he says ; 
" It is to the property of the system and not to the demand 
of the creditor of the State the original fai Ai of society is 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 29 

pledged ; the claim of the citizen is prior in time, superior in 
equity and paramount in title." When the body politic and 
•social state are suffering from the most malignant disease, 
demanding the most heroic treatment, it is no time to de- 
claim about national honor. One might as well at the bed 
side of a patient in like condition cry out health, health! 
instead of remedying the disease. No, no ; the true rule, 
the only rule in such case is, 

" Above all to thine own self be true, 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

The preservation of the life of the nation is paramount to 
all else. 

I fear it is beyond the power of mortal voice to arouse 
those in whose hands have been concentrated the money and 
the wealth of the country, through so flagrant . an abuse of 
the taxing power, and so long continued and who wield this 
tremendous power so potential for evil, to a sense of the diffi- 
culties and dangers by which they are surrounded ere it shall 
be too late. They have already subjected the people to a 
tyranny that has denied to many of them their heritage 
from the Lord, in the shape of such temporal blessings, as 
food, dothing, etc. For proof look at the wonderful pro- 
fusion of God's blessings, by which we are surrounded, and 
yet there are millions of people in this land of ours; 

" Of every land the pride, 

Beloved by heaven, o'er all the world beside," 

who could not subsist but by public and private benefactions, 

and if you were to state the case to one who knew not the facts 

he would involuntarily ask, what pestilence, what famine has 

swept over the land blighting its prosperity, marring the 

happiness of its population? 

He could not realize that even such a concentration of the 

money and wealth of the country in the hands of a few 

could equal in its blighting effects upon the happiness and 

prosperity of a people the wrath of an offended God. 

The reason is in subjecting others to so cruel and rapacious a 



30 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

tyranny they have themselves become the victims of avarice, 
the most sordid of all vices, absorbing every passion of the 
mind, every feeling of the heart — the last to see and the 
first to yield to danger, and which like every other vice, 
and more than all others, blinds its victims while luring them 
to their ruin ! 

The most renowned people of antiquity became involved 
in war ; they lost everthing save their country — every one dis- 
regarding all obligations to the dead as well as to the living. 
was wholly for himself, engaged in the greed for gain, the 
social bonds were loosening, society was disintegrating, the 
life of the nation was imperiled. At this perilous juncture 
appears upon the scene the noblest Grecian of them all, with 
a singleness of devotion, with patriotic emotions inspired by 
a patriotism that added to a love of country a love of liberty 
in behalf of his beloved Athens, fast becoming the prey of 
the most rapacious tyranny on the one hand and of sedition 
on the other, Pericles addressed his countrymen, and what 
did he say ? " You should, my countrymen, be more mind- 
ful of the public calamities. The citizen of a vital State will 
find continually occurring opportunities whereby he may 
recuperate his losses and retrieve his fortunes ; whereas the 
citizen of a decaying State, however prosperous he may be, 
though he have all that heart could wish, must necessarily, 
sooner or later, be overwhelmed in the irretrievable ruin, and 
downfall of his country." 

Tyranny and sedition stood abashed, the greed for gain 
gave place to a noble philanthropy, confidence was inspired, 
in the prosperity of all was seen a guaranty of prosperity to 
li&ch. ; a new career was commenced that eclipsed in distinc- 
tion and renown, power and dominion and a material pros- 
perity any ever realized before and shed so bright a halo of 

glory over the history of that renowned people that when th»' 
sun of her destiny did set it went down as the sun that illu- 
mined her own bright skies. 

' Not as in northern climes obscurely bright, 
But in one unclouded blaze of living right." 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 31 

Well might a power, the abuse of which has been fraught 
in all ages with the most calamitous results, command the 
consideration as it has of the wisest and deepest thinkers- 
Chief Justice Marshall has declared the power to tax was 
virtually the power to destroy. 

To prevent its abuse the reliance has hitherto been upon 
written Constitutions. And as it is my object not only to 
vindicate truth in all that has been and may be said in favor 
of the remedy proposed, but also to dislodge error how- 
ever deeply entrenched, I shall, therefore, treat in 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF CONSTITUTION. 

What then is Constitution? Constitution is the supreme 
law. In Constitution are defined the powers of rulers, the 
rights of the people and whatever limitations and restrictions 
it is sought to impose upon rulers. What is power ? Rights 
when organized or put in the concrete constitute power, the 
power to govern ; and the difference between the rights of 
rulers and the rights of the people is the rights of rulers in 
governments become organized power, whereas the rights of 
people together with the restrictions and limitations sought 
to be imposed upon rulers are defined and clearly defined 
in the constitution, but not organized in the government as 
are the rights" of rulers constituting power. The rights of 
the rulers are in the concrete in the government, while the 
rights of the people are in the abstract in the constitution. 
As all are not in the habit of abstract reasoning I will illus- 
trate again the difference between rights in the concrete and 
rights in the abstract. For this purpose let us take steam 
power. When the coffee-pot is put on the fire and boils the 
top will rise when the water boils. Steam power raises the 
top, and steam power is a truth and because truth indestruct- 
ible. This is only an abstract truth. But when through the 



32 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVfLS, 

devices and contrivances of the steam engine steam is di- 
rected to purposes of transportation and travel; to diversify 
oersuits and to multiply industries, it being now in the con- 
crete becomes the most potential power man can control in 
the material world. And no one can resist this power thus- 
organized, by any pressure of steam, I care not how high such 
pressure, if unorganized and not in the concrete ; for organ- 
ized power can be successfully resisted only by organized 
power in the material world, and the principle applies as 
forcibly in the moral and political world as in the material. 
Hence, rulers not only exercise their lawful authority, but 
usurp authority by encroachments upon the rights of the 
people, and rights whether voluntarily conferred or usurped 
become organized power in the hands of the rulers. These 
usurpations, as we have seen, do not commence by an usurpa- 
tion of the political rights of the people, but by the stealthy 
encroachment of power through the abuse of the taxing 
power, as we have seen in the chapter on Taxation and 
Money, on their industrial rights, crushing their interests 
and destroying labor. To illustrate : There is the industrial 
right to pursue the occupation of agricultural industry — a 
right denied to none even under governments the most des- 
potic. Yet if one cent more than necessary to supply the le- 
gitimate wants of the government be taken, to that extent 
that right is impaired, and if impaired to that extent it may 
be impaired until destroyed. Hence, as Chief Justice Mar- 
shall said, the right to tax is virtually the right to destroy. 
Such usurpations may continue until all industrial rights are 
impaired to such an extent as to destroy labor. How is the 
laborer to resist ? His industrial rights are but vaguely if at 
all recognized in the government. Can he rely upon his po- 
litical rights ? These are recognized in the constitution but 
not organized in the government, And hence if he resist at 
all he must resist by force. But to make forcible resistance 
successful requires not only men but subsistence or bread and 
money. Through the industries alone he could earn bread 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 3.H 33 

and money. These industrial rights and interests, however, 
have been destroyed and crushed so far as he is concerned, 
for his earnings have, through the abuse of the taxing power 
been taken by the government, and hence, it is such resist- 
ance is rarely successful. 

The reason is, there is a vis inertia to be overcome which is 
always more or less difficult to do, for many and powerful 
reasons. Men greatly prefer peace to war, strife and blood- 
shed. Besides they are taught to rely upon truth and justice 
and the protection they should guarantee to political and as 
a consequence to their industrial rights. But as we have 
seen, these in tHe abstract are of little or no practical value. 
And hence it is only when the injustice and oppression be- 
come insupportable that men resist and then it is too late for 
the reasons stated, and thus it is shown that a reliance upon 
constitution merely is but a snare and delusion. Not only 
so, though constitution be the supreme law it is as any other 
law — " a rule of action " only. No laws, however, enforce 
themselyes. For their enforcement agencies, and instru- 
mentalities are required. For the enforcement of the com- 
mon and statute law, law-makers provide the agencies and 
instrumentalities, such as courts, juries, sheriffs, etc. But 
who can provide the agencies and instrumentalities for the 
supreme law ? The constitution is above the law-makers. 
They may enact laws for the avowed purposes of carrying 
out or enforcing the provisions or powers of the constitution ; 
but what is there to make such laws in accordance with or in 
obedience to the constitution in its letter and spirit ? The 
oaths of law-makers, it is said, who are sworn to support the 
constitution. Admitting an oath binds the conscience, does 
it give the intellect the discernment of its true meaning and 
intent ? Certain it is oaths never gave uniformity to the 
conclusions of law-makers; and while the conclusions of 
some may be right, the different conclusions of others must 
be wrong ; and whether the conclusion of the minority or 
majority be right or wrong it is impossible to say with 



34 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

absolute certainty. So that in the binding efficacy of oaths 
however conscientious law-makers may be there is no guar- 
anty of an enforcement of the constitution in its letter and 
spirit. And hence it is that throughout all time constitu- 
tions have been to those who have relied upon them only 
a snare and delusion with one solitary exception ; and that 
became vital and efficient when other devices for its en- 
forcement had superceded the ministration of oaths. I 
mean the great charter — the Magna Charta— the British 
constitution. Appendix (A), end of this work, is a digested 
history of the great charter from a most able and profound 
writer, extending through a period of two ' hundred years, 
and more; showing just as often" as sworn to for its ob- 
servance, just so often it was violated during the period 
stated. And afterwards when' oaths were superceded by 
other devices or contrivances substituted to enforce its ob- 
servance, for seven centuries it has not been violated. The 
question then becomes, Where were these devices found ? What 
they f They were found in the structure or organism of 
the government and consisted in ' the representation of 
; the industries — the great and leading interests of society instead 
of a representation of persons with the ministration of oaths. 
The history of this celebrated State paper is briefly this : It 
wa/s" extorted from King John, a weak and imbecile prince 
on the plains of Runnymede. And as the only means then 
known, for its enforcement the king was sworn to its observ- 
■■:•; and' in case of its violation the remedy provided was 
force. Just as in the case of our own constitution, and of 
every other one before or since, the consequence of violated 
oaths, real or supposed, has been force. I have said as in 
the case of our own, and I know it will be denied by those 
who contend that the Supreme court is in such cases the 
arbiter, and the final arbiter. To establish the position as- 
sumed let us suppose a law for the assessment and collection 
of taxes for revenue far beyond the necessary and legitimate 
wants of the government. To raise a revenue for defraying 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 35 

the necessary and legitimate expenses of the government 
is constitutional. 

How is the validity of such an act to be tested before the 
Supreme court. That court would look to the constitution 
and see Congress had the power to enact laws for raising a 
revenue to defray the expenses of the government. To 
which it would be replied, that is very true; but this law 
while nominally raising a revenue to defray such expenses in 
as much as the amount raised is far in excess of the necessary 
expenses, a flagrant violation and abuse of the taxing 
power. What would, what must that tribunal reply? That 
it is a matter within the discretion of Congress, the law-mak- 
ing department, and as to how little may be necessary and 
proper in the way of taxes is a question of which this tribu- 
nal cannot take jurisdiction ; yet upon this very question 
turns the validity, the justice, the constitutionality of the 
law. So that the source and origin of all unjust and op- 
pressive legislation, the abuse of the taxing power is not 
within the jurisdiction of the Supreme court. Not only so, 
it is well known to all lawyers that in technical language 
that tribunal, according to the science of jurisprudence or 
law can have jurisdiction only in cases of law and equity, 
and they know the case supposed is one neither of law nor 
equity in the technical sence of the term. Not only so ; if it 
were, it would not be a fit tribunal; not only because its 
members are but men, and in all men the selfish feelings 
predominate, they live by the taxes and could not or would 
not put themselves in the place of those who pay the taxes. 
Besides all this, however, we have a very striking proof of all 
contended for in a very recent case involving the conflicting 
claims of candidates for the office ot President, and on ac- 
count of which the whole country was brought to the very 
verge of civil strife. Was not this august tribunal, in a case 
of the greatest magnitude involving constitutional questions 
of the very gravest import, by common consent ignored as 
wholly unfit to enforce the constitution ? It would have been 



36 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

no less absurd for the Supreme court to have undertaken to 
decide this case than the case supposed of an abuse of the 
taxing power. To show still more forcibly the folly of rely- 
ing upon the ministration of oaths, as if judges were more 
than mortals, let us take the case of the joint commission 
consisting of an odd instead of an even number of judges, just 
as if oaths were intended to ignore truth and justice. Had 
the number been even truth and justice would have been 
the umpire, for men of views, however opposed, could not or 
would not have invoked wrong and falsehood. In fact, was 
not the constitution itself as well as truth and justice 
ignored in the creation of this commission? 

Let us, however, proceed with the history of the charter. 
We have stated what the contrivances were for superceding 
the ministration of oaths. Until then the king whenever he 
wanted money would disregard his oath and violate the 
charter to obtain it, and as the only remedy was force, the 
result was strife and bloodshed. This state of things, 
however, taxed severely the patience of each party, and it 
was finally agreed the king should state what money was 
needed and how it was to be disbursed, and a third party 
consisting of those engaged in agriculture, commerce and 
manufactures should say how much they could pay. No 
one anticipated the result, which was the organization of the 
British government by the establishment of the House of 
Commons, this third party constituting its members with the 
power to say what taxes should be collected and how, 
when collected they should be disbursed. The king was no 
longer required to take the oath to observe the charter, but 
was given to understand unless he observed the charter he 
could get no money. From that day to this, extending through 
centuries, the charter has never been violated. It must be 
borne in mind, however, that modern institutions have been 
constituted upon the ruins of the feudal system and to a 
great extent the material furnished for such structure has 
been obtained from the wreck and debris of that system. 



SOCIAL'. AND POLITICAL. 37 

Hence, in the British government persons, the privileged 
class, are represented in the House of Peers ; while the king 
in his person represents the prerogatives of the crown. Be- 
sides, under the Feudal system the bulk of the population 
were serfs, really slaves in domestic servitude. Upon the 
false assumption that those only who held property paid 
taxes, those serfs generally owning none when relieved from 
their serfdom were left in a condition of political servitude, 
being denied the right of suffrage, which the world over, is 
worse than domestic servitude. Hence it is, although through 
the representation of interests in the House of Commons 
political rights are guaranteed to the masses ; yet owing to 
the representation of persons in the Peers, and in the crown 
their industrial rights are so crushed all the earnings of their 
industry and toil, go into the pockets of the aristocracy so 
that the government itself is to all beneath the gentry, an 
inferior aristocracy, represented through their interests in the 
House of Commons, a Dead sea despotism to the millions. 

Now the people of the United States repudiate privileged 
classes and political servitude in the universal right of suf- 
frage, and recognizing the fact that whether laborers have 
property or not labor pays the taxes, ^nd that therefore 
laborers should vote upon the principle that taxation and 
repudiation should go together. They, however, rely upon 
the ministration of oaths to support the constitution, the 
fallacy of which has been shown, and upon constitution as a 
guaranty of political rights the fallacy also of which has 
been shown, for the charter or constitution was not the guar- 
anty of political rights, but the structure of the House of 
Commons in enforcing the constitution became the bulwark 
of English liberty. Universal suffrage and the constitution 
with the ministration of oaths, as shown, are no guaranty of 
industrial rights, and if no guaranty of industrial rights is no 
guaranty of political rights. All of which the history of the 
great charter abundantly proves. It is to the representation 
of persons instead of interests in governments and to which 



38 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

our own is no exception, that through the abuse of the tax- 
ing power has been engendered these evils now sought to be 
remedied, and the threatened conflicts now sought to be pre- 
vented. While the government through suitable devices 
and contrivances may give vitality to constitution and enforce 
an observance of the rights of the people and restrictions 
sought to be imposed upon rulers , it follows as a corollary, 
constitution can neither create nor control government. 

Such attempts have been numerous, but failure has been 
the invariable result ; a truth confirmed not only by the his- 
tory of the charter but also by our own history, as I shall 
now proceed to show. The colonial governments were estab- 
lished by the British government, and charters furnished by 
that government as rules of action for these colonies. Notice 
these colonial governments were not established by charters 
or constitutions. When the colonies repudiated the author- 
ity of Britian they substituted with one exception constitu- 
tions as rules of action in place of their charters. And the 
colonies becoming States established a confederation with 
articles of confedration as a rule of action, and afterwards 
the States established the government of the United States 
with a constitution as a rule of action. Through the influence 
of Mr. Jefferson and others the first series of amendments 
was adopted. Read in the light of history and of the Vir- 
ginia and the Kentucky Resolutions of '98 and '99, and Mr. 
Madison's Report thereon," their objects may be understood. 
Every object sought to be accomplished when put to the test 
has failed; especially the leading object, which was to perpet- 
uate the Federal system, the Union ; for all know the Union 
has been superseded by the Nation. The second series were 
not declaratory of the Nation as an accomplished fact, but 
if entirely oblivious of the wonderful work that had been 
wrought, though patent to all, merely extended the right of 
suffrage to the emancipated slaves in recognition of the fact 
we may suppose that without such right they would be in a 
condition of political servitude, worse than that from which 
(domestic servitude) they had been emancipated. 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 39 

The elective franchise, however, it is even now claimed by 
some should be limited ; while others think, the voters, espe- 
cially non-property holders, and illiterate persons should be 
wholly disfranchised, alleging as a reason its licentious ^exer- 
cise in that they will sell their votes to candidates who will 
buy their votes. If so, can the representative be better than 
those who elect him ? And are we not authorized to con- 
clude that he who will buy another's .vote will sell his own? 
In fact the cupidity, vice and profligacy of rulers are and ever 
have been more conspicuous than the licentiousness of the 
people. And the objection, if good at all, goes to the whole 
plan of representation and against a government of Free 
Form. "Without the elective franchise universal suffrage it is 
idle to speak of government of the Free or Republican 
Form. Yet, while, as I admit and contend, the right of 
suffrage is not of itself sufficient it is indispensable as the 
foundation of all other rights. 

The defect is not in the elective franchise, but the defect is 
in a government constructed in reference to political instead 
of industrial rights, with a representation of .persons instead 
of a representation of interests. Wherever then government 
fails from defects in its conservative elements becoming 
effete it follows as a second corollary that mere amendments 
to constitution however numerous, however ably devised, will 
not suffice — cannot remedy defects — cannot substitute that 
which is vital for that which has become effete. To this end 
new governmental contrivances and devices are absolutely 
essential and are imperatively demanded. For the purpose 
of suggesting such devices and contrivances I shall proceed 
to treat in 



40' KEMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

CHAPTER V. 

OF THE PROPER ORGANISM OR STRUCTURE OF GOYERI1MENT. 

If what has been said in the proceeding chapters it is 
owing to the abuse of the taxing power in governments con- 
structed in reference to .political rights with a representation 
of persons resulting in the public oppression and private in- 
justice that develop social and political Evils. And this pre 
sents the question, Can government be so formed as to or- 
ganize the people's rights so as to prevent such public oppression 
and private justice ? I undertake to say it can be done, and 
done without shock or convulsion, without impairing any- 
one's rights, without doing any injustice. In such an organ- 
ization is found a solution of the most important and at the 
same time the most difficult problem ever presented by civil- 
ization for governmental solution how so to limit and restrict 
the taxing power as to prevent its abuse ? The law-making 
department of the government is the most important; 
in fact all in all. Instead then of being composed of 
Senators of so-called States and of Representatives nom- 
inally of the people, let this department be composed of 
three houses : one the Agricultural House, another the 
Commercial House of Representatives, and the third the 
Manufacturing and Mechanical House of Representatives. 
Let those engaged in agricultural pursuits be enrolled in each 
of the States and an apportionment of representation made as 
is now made for Representatives ; the numbers, in population 
for each representative should be large enough to prevent too 
numerous a representation for mature deliberation and reflec- 
tion ; these representatives to be elected by those who are 
engaged in agricultural pursuits will constitute the Agricul- 
tural House of Representatives, and in like manner let the 
Commercial House of Representatives be constituted, being 
representatives of those engaged in commercial pursuits. 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 41 

And in like manner let those engaged in manufacturing and 
mechanical pursuits, which being so much alike may be reck- 
oned as one, elect representatives, to constitute the Third 
House of Kepre3entatives, those three houses constituting 
the Law-making Department. Let, then, the agricultural 
representatives enact such measures as they think would pro- 
mote that interest and of which they would be the best 
judges, identified as they are with that interest; and on which 
a majority should decide because a majority could not op- 
press a minority identified with it in interest. Let it be re- 
quired, however, for the enactment of any such measure 
into a law that a majority of each of the other two houses 
should concur in the same. 

It is very evident that any measure which would promote 
the interests of agriculture would also indirectly if not di_ 
rectly promote the commercial and the manufacturing and 
mechanical interests and they would of course concur in the 
enactment of such measures provided such measures did not 
in promoting the agricultural interest operate unjustly and 
oppressively upon them. In such case they would not and 
ought not to concur. In thus promoting the interests of 
each the interests of all would be promoted. In like man- 
ner let measures be adopted in the other house requiring a 
like concurrence for their enactment as laws. The absolute 
numerical majority may pass any measure not only because a 
majority cannot oppress a minority identified with it in inter- 
est, but also for dispatch in business. The concurrent majority 
principle is adopted because one interest could not in such 
case oppress another which, if it could it would so long as our 
selfish feelings predominate ; and because such concurrence 
would prevent hasty and injudicious legislation; and not only 
so. such concurrence would give endurance and stability to gov- 
ernment. In favor of the concurrent majority principle too 
much cannot be said, while the history of the world bear? 
testimony to the fact that no government based upon the ab- 
solute numerical majority principle has been known to last 



42 REMEDY EOR EXISTING- EVILS, 

through one generation. The industrial rights and industrial 
interests of these three great and leading interests would be 
protected and promoted, and not only so, all other industrial 
rights and interests would be thereby protected and pro- 
moted because all other industrial rights and interests of 
society flow from one or the other of these great and leading 
interests or some combination of them, and since the elective 
franchise lies at the foundation of all other rights, universal 
suffrage should be allowed ; therefore, let those not engaged 
in either of these great and leading pursuits enroll them- 
selves at iheir option with either one of them and vote 
accordingly. And while it is very certain those identified 
in interest would know best what would promote their inter- 
est, as all interests are more or less dependent upon a system 
of wise and judicious laws it might be advisable to have rep- 
resentatative men learned in the professions. I would not 
make a prohibition excluding any one from such right hav- 
ing all the qualifications that might be prescribed for rep- 
resentative men aside from their pursuit. It is also very cer- 
tain that money is essential to conduct governmental opera- 
tions. It is also certain through government alone can the 
social state be preserved and civilization be fostered and de- 
veloped. Since those connected with the industries constitute 
the overwhelming portion of the population it is certain for 
the preservation of the social state and the development of 
civilization and having the right under the structure pro- 
posed to do so, will not only from interest but also from 
necessity vote sufficient revenues for all necessary and legiti- 
mate purposes, and not only so, but to these ends see the 
moneys thus collected properly disbursed. Above all, since 
the industries alone create wealth, and wealth begets materia f 
prosperity, and material prosperity begets material aid, 
money; those then who earn the money pay the taxes; and 
in the language of the immortal Burke, unless they who pay 
the taxes have the right not only to say what taxes they will 
pay and how they shall be disbursed have not a shadow of 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL, 43 

liberty left ; because there is no such thing as liberty in the 
abstract, and that liberty inheres in the principle of taxation. So 
that under the structure of government proposed liberty 
which throughout the measureless past as in the living pres- 
ent has been and is man's pleasing hope, his fond desire, 
would be preserved ; and while we would enjoy its blessings 
would transmit it unimpaired to those who come after us. 
Not only so, with the blessings of liberty would be guaran- 
teed the protection of life and property and the pursuit of 
happiness. For while enough would be given out of the 
pockets of those who earn the money to conduct govern- 
mental operations enough would be retained to enable them 
to advance in civilization, thus guarantying happiness, for 
happiness as liberty exists not in the abstract, but it is to be 
tound only in some of the varied pursuits of life whereby 
man advances in civilization the happiness consisting in amel- 
iorating and improving his condition and also in ameliorating 
the condition of .the race and exalting humanity. And thus 
would be accomplished, as set forth in the preamble to the 
constitution, all our ancestors desired — the protection of life 
and property, the enjoyment of the blessings of liberty and 
the perpetuation of them and the pursuit of happiness. Not 
only so ; in giving enough to conduct governmental operations 
and retaining enough to advance in civilization the taxing 
power is limited and restricted so as to prevent its abuse ; thereby 
remedying Evils, Social and Political, in preventing the public 
oppression ; and in preventing the public oppression its inva- 
riable concomitant, the private injustice by which the wealth 
and money of the country are concentrated, in the hands of 
the few, is prevented, and thereby is prevented the threatened 
conflicts between the few, the capitalists, and the many, the 
laborers. 

And in the solution of the problem ; how so to limit and 
restrict the taxing power as to prevent its abuse, is seen the 
remedy and preventative proposed. To apply which all that 
it would be necessary to do would be to observe the course 



44 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

prescribed by the constitution, and either through the two 
Houses of Congress, as now constituted, or which would be 
better through a convention called for the purpose strike out 
the law-making department in the constitution and insert 
the measure proposed. 

It is easier in the physical world to hold a heavy body in 
equilibrium with an odd than an even number of forces, so in 
the moral and political world ; therefore, not only for this 
reason but also because the patronage of a chief executive 
would necessarily confer upon him great power I would deprive 
the chief magistrate as in France of the veto power in the en- 
actment of laws allowing him, however, for reasons unnec- 
essary to "state, the pardoning power. Besides professedly 
representing all interests, the selfish feelings predominating 
he would at last represent the money power as representa- 
tives of persons have hitherto done and do now. Such other 
alterations as may be required will be of minor importance, 
and will readily suggest themselves. 

We have seen with such a representation of the industries 
as proposed, the preservation of liberty is guaranteed and if 
so there is necessarily a guaranty of political rights. Politi- 
cal rights, however, are b^t the fruits and flowers of the tree 
of liberty, and although its roots have been watered by the 
blood of heroes and of martyrs its vitality, its life inheres in 
the principle of taxation. Hence, it is the efforts of the 
good and great of the past have been a history of failures, be- 
cause they have bestowed their efforts upon the preservation 
of political rights ignoring industrial rights. Whereas, so far 
as the structure of government and the preservation of lib- 
erty are concerned industrial rights far transcend in im- 
portance political rights. The history of the world shows not 
an instance where political rights have been trampled under 
foot until industrial rights had been crushed. I say until 
industrial rights have been crushed ; for the industries may 
flourish for centuries, as in England, yet the laborer is so 
effectually robbed under the sanction of law of his earnings, 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 45 

all of which beyond a meager subsistance, as a general rule, go 
into the pockets of the aristocracy; so that although the 
industries do nourish the laborer is cruelly oppressed. The 
question then might well be asked What more, so far as the 
proposed structure of government is concerned, could be de- 
sired ? It has been said by one of the purest and ablest of 
men that so much can be said in its favor while so little can 
be said against it, that but for the necessity of removing the 
wreck and debris of effete institutions he did not believe 
there would be one voice against its adoption. 

Having shown that the reconstruction proposed would 
remedy existing evils, social and political, if adopted, and 
that in remedying these evils it would also prevent conflicts 
between capital and labor. I shall proceed to show that the 
structure propsed embodies the principles essential to all 
governments worthy the name, and so embodies them as to 
preserve and perpetuate government of the Free Form. 

Government in the abstract is ordained of God. It should 
be so constructed in the concrete that it may preserve the 
social state in order to perpetuate the race and that the indi- 
viduals composing the social state may develop civilization. 
To these ends individuals confederating together constitute 
the social state; and individuals composing the social state 
form the body-politic, and the individuals of the body-politic 
form the State, Nation, or People. To preserve each, the 
social state and body-politic government is essential. In the 
body-politic the national principle inheres. In the social 
state the federative principle inheres; and as government 
includes both the social state and body-politic these principles 
necessarily inhere in government. If, however, the national 
principle exclusively dominates we have an unmitigated des- 
potism, and all individuality in the members composing the 
social state, at least the vast majority of them, would be 
crushed so, as to the masses, there would be little or no devel- 
opment of civilization. If the Federative principle exclu- 
sively dominates we should have anarchy, a mobocracy; 



46 EEMEDY FOB EXISTING EVILS. 

the social state would disintegrate and there could be no 
development of civilization. It is then plain the nearer 
these principles exist in equilibrium in the government the 
highest civilization would be developed, and hence, where 
such equilibrium more nearly exists the more excellent the 
government. These principles are co- existent with govern- 
ment. They were in conflict centuries ago on the plains of 
Greece, when the battles of Marathon and Platsea were 
fought. 

They may be readily recognized. The exponents of the 
national principle are money, power, dominion, and the 
sword is its ensign. The exponents of the Federative prin- 
ciple are liberty, labor, the industries, and peace is its en- 
sign. To any government of the Free form, as Dr. Wayland 
asserts, and to which all must agree, a constitution that shall 
guaranty against the public oppression (and as a consequence 
I will add against the private) is absolutely essential. It has 
been conclusively shown such constitution must depend for 
its efficacy and vitality to answer the ends designed upon a 
structure not as heretofore in reference to political rights, 
but upon the structure as proposed in reference to in- 
dusrial rights. Not only because through such structure 
material prosperity is assured in preventing the abuse of the 
taxing-power ; but because in that structure also the national 
and federal principles exist, but in a nicely adjusted equilib- 
rium and as beautifully and as harmoniously blended as were 
the white and red roses of England whereby were ended the 
seemingly endless wars of Plantagenets and Tudors ; while 
through the concurrent majority principle in the stability and 
endurance of the government in the prosperity of the people 
will be assured an enduring peace. Why not then apply 
the remedy in the reconstruction proposed ? 

I know it is difficult to realize the necessity for change, 
however imperatively demanded in institutions under which 
we have acquired material posperity, power, and dominion, 
distinction and renown. I shall, therefore, proceed to show 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 47 

owing to the re-actionary influence of discoveries and inven- 
tions, especially in those of a more recent date, upon the 
moral and political world, that great and radical changes in 
institutions hitherto existing are inevitable and not with us a 
matter of choice. As these discoveries and inventions have 
been graphically enumerated and their probably destined 
results forcibly stated by a most able and profound thinker, 
I shall present his views in 



CHAPTER VI. 

OX THE JUNCTURE AT WHICH WE LIVE. 

To a clear understanding, however, of the situation we 
shall trace the causes developing a juncture second' only in 
the magnitude of its destined results and of those already 
accomplished to that marked by the advent of the Mesiah. 
But as these causes have been graphically enumerated by 
another we shall present them to the reader in his language : 

" They will, upon investigation, be found in the many 
discoveries and inventions made in the past few centuries." 

Among the most prominent of those of an earlier date 
stand the practical application of the magnetic power to the 
purpose of navigation, by the invention of the mariner's 
compass; the discovery of the mode of making gun-powder, 
and its application to the art of war; and the invention of 
the art of printing. Among the more recent are the numer- 
ous chemical and mechanical discoveries, and inventions, and 
their application to the various arts of production, the ap- 
plication of steam to machinery of almost every description, 
especially such as is designed to facilitate transportation 
and travel by land and water ; and finally the invention of 
the magnetic telegraph. All these have led to important re- 
sults. Through the invention of the mariner's compass the 
globe has been circumnavigated and explored, and all who 



48 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

inhabit it, with but few exceptions, brought within the sphere 
of an all-pervading commerce, which is daily diffusing over 
its surface the light and blessings of civilization. Through 
that of the art of printing the fruits of observation and re- 
flection, of discoveries and inventions, with all the accumu- 
lated stores of acquired knowledge, are preserved and 
widely diffused. The application of gun-powder to the arts 
of war, has forever settled the long conflict for ascendency 
between civilization and barbarism, in favor of the former, and 
thereby guaranteed that, whatever knowledge is -now accumu- 
lated, or may hereafter be added, shall never again be lost. 
The numerous discoveries and inventions, chemical and me- 
chanical, and the application of steam to machinery, have 
increased many fold, the productive powers of labor and 
capital, and have, thereby, greatly increased the number who 
may devote themselves to study and improvement, and the 
amount of means necessary for commercial exchanges, espe- 
cially between the more and the less advanced and civilized 
portions of the globe, to the great advantage of both, but 
particularly of the latter. The application of steam to the 
purposes of travel and transportation, by land and water, has 
vastly increased the facility, cheapness and rapidity of both ; 
diffusing with them, information and intelligence, almost as 
quickly and as freely as if borne by the winds, while the 
electrical wires outstrip them in velocity, rivaling, in rapidity, 
even thought itself. 

The joint effect of all has been a great increase and diffus- 
ion of knowledge, and, with this an impulse to progress and 
civilization heretofore unknown, unexampled in the history 
of the world, accompanied by a mental energy and activity 
unprecedented. 

To all these causes public opinion, and its organ, the press, 
owe their origin and great influence. Already they have 
attained a force in the more civilized portions of the globe, 
sufficient to be felt by all governments, even the most abso- 
lute and despotic. But as great as they now are, they have 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 49 

as yet attained nothing like their maximum force. It is proba- 
ble, that not one of the causes, which have contributed to their 
formation and influence, has yet produced its full effect; 
while several of the most powerful have just begun to ope- 
rate ; and many others, probably of equal or even of greater 
force, yet remain to be brought to light. 

When the causes now in operation have produced their full 
effect, and inventions and discoveries shall have been ex- 
hausted, if that can ever be they will give a force to public 
opinion, and cause changes, political and social, difficult to be 
anticipated. What will be their final bearing time only can 
decide with any certainty. That they will, however, greatly 
improve the condition of man, ultimately, it would be impious 
to doubt. It would be, to suppose that the all-wise and be- 
nignant Being, the Creator of all, had so constituted man as 
that the employment of the high intellectual faculties with 
which He has been pleased to endow him, in order tljat he 
might develop the laws that control the great agents of the 
material world, and make them subservient to His use, would 
prove to Him a cause of permanent evil, and not permanent 
good. If then such a suggestion be inadmissible, they must 
in their orderly and full development end in his permanent 
good. But this cannot be unless the ultimate effect of their 
action, politically, shall be to give ascendency to that form of 
government best calculated to fill the ends for which govern- 
ment is ordained. For so completely does the well-being of 
our race depend on good government that it is hardly possi- 
ble that any change, the ultimate effect of which should be 
otherwise, could prove to be a permanent good. 

It is, however, not improbable that many and great, but 
temporary evils will follow the changes they have effected, 
and are destined to effect. It seems to be a law in the politi- 
cal as well as in the material world, that great changes fc?ahhot 
be made, except very gradually, without convulsions and 
revolutions, to be followed by calamities in the beginning, 
however beneficial they may prove to be in the end. The 



50 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

first effect of such change on long established govern- 
ments, will be to unsettle the principles in which they 
originated, and which have guided their policy before . those 
which the changes are calculated to form and establish, are 
fairly developed and understood. The interval between 
the decay of the old, and the formation and establishment of 
the new, constitutes a period of transition, which must 
always of necessity be one of uncertainty, confusion, error. 
and wild and fierce fanaticism. 

The governments of the more advanced and civilized por- 
tions of the world are now in the midst of this period. It- 
has proved and will continue to prove a sore trial to existing 
political institutions of every form. Those governments 
which have not the sagacity to perceive what is public opin- 
ion, to distinguish between it and the mere clamor of faction 
or shouts of fanaticism, and the good sense and firmness to 
yield? timely and cautiously, to the claims of the one and to 
resist, promptly and decidedly, the demands of the other, are 
doomed to fall. Few will be able, successfully, to pass 
through this period of transition ; and these not without 
shocks and modifications more or less considerable. It will 
endure until the governed and the governing shall better 
understand the ends for which government is ordained. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHY LOUIS NAPOLEON WROTE HIS LIFE OF JULIUS C-KSAK. 

Louis Napoleon recognized the fact that we were in the 
midst of a transition period in its broadest sense ; that it would 
,be a severe test of all existing institutions, and that either for 
better or for worse changes were inevitable. He sought in 
his life of Caesar to inculcate the lesson, to deduce the con- 
clusion, that all republics, sooner or later, would necessarily 
culminate in military despotisms. If he could turn the 
public opinion of France in that direction (since public opinion 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 51 

at last it is that governs the world), then France, having a 
constitutional monarchy, capable of amendments, and there- 
fore preferable to a despotism, would forego her hopes and 
aspirations for a republic, and he thereby would establish his 
throne and perpetuate his dynasty. 

. He makes the false assumption that it seems almost every 
one does, that the cause of the failure of the Roman republic was 
the unfitness of the people, their incapacity to live under a gov- 
ernment of that form. They had established their republic ; 
had lived under it for centuries ; had acquired power and dis- 
tinction, renown and dominion. They were the same people 
when the empire was inaugurated as while living under the 
republic, and at no period in the history of that renowned 
people did brighter names adorn their annals than at the 
period of the death-struggle of the republic. There were 
Cato, Cicero, Brutus, and hosts of others, whose patriotism 
burned within the very portals of the tomb. And if the 
people were licentious those in power were vicious, profligate 
and noted for their cupidity. So that if the people were 
unfit to be the citizens of a republic the rulers were unfit to 
rule. The truth is the real cause lay in defective govern- 
ment- 

So the objection applies to rulers as forcibly as to the peo- 
ple, and under governments of all forms far more forcibly 
does the objection apply to the rulers than to the ruled. 
The truth is the defect, the causes of the failure lay in the 
government ; not in its form, but in its effete organism. The 
tribunitial was the conservative element of their govern- 
ment. Upon its adoption it proved to be a peaceable remedy, 
when the only remedy before was force, and resulting in con- 
tinual strife between the Patricians and the Plebians, 
and its adoption secured peace. This simple contriv- 
ance, gave to the people, through their tribunes, officers 
elected by themselves, the power to veto laws enacted by the 
Patricians. Their interests were thus harmonized, and from 
insignificance the Eomans became in power and dominion 



52 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

the most formidable people on the globe. In the progress of 
events, and owing to the changes wrought by their rise from 
insignificance to the very pinacle of power and dominion, 
and their progress in civilization, that element ceased to sub- 
serve the purpose it had in thi past. There was therefore a 
necessity for new contrivances and devices to enable it to sub- 
serve the valuable purpose it had in the past, or the substitu- 
tion of something in its place equally as conservative as that 
had been. This necessity the truly patriotic failed to perceive. 
As was natural, they felt attached to the government under 
which they had acquired such power and distinction, renown 
and dominion, and material prosperity, and sought to preserve 
it as it was, as it had been, notwithstanding its Agrarian laws, 
its bloody factions contending for the supremacy, and rapidly 
approaching anarchy. Csesar said force was essential to gov" 
ernment to preserve itself. Amid the uncertainty and confu- 
sion, violence and bloodshed, the fanaticism and paralysis of 
leaders and people, events were rapidly accelerating the final 
result. Their progress brooked no delay, and the empire was 
inaugurated. It was not due to the personal character of Cse- 
sar, nor was it Csesar that inaugurated the empire. It was the 
inevitable progress of events from the effetism of the tribuni- 
tial element, nothing conservative being substituted in its 
stead. Did space permit, it would not be difficult to show 
why the tribunitial element became effete. But it will be 
Well to observe that under the empire it played no part, passed 
into disuse, and it would be far more logical to conclude the 
fault or defect lay in the government, and not in the people. 
Let us note, too, the result of the tribunitial power, ^peaceable 
remedy, and force as a remedy of the empire. True we say 
the empire flourished most under Augustus, and that is true ; 
but the people never prospered under the empire, nor had the 
government such prestige under the rule of Emperors, as du- 
ring the republic, and when the empire flourished at all, it was 
in consuming the fruits of the republic. From the adoption 
of the tribunitial element, the peaceable remedy, the genius 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 53 

of Rome became in the ascendant, and she became the mis- 
tress of the world. Upon the effetism of such peaceable rem- 
edy and the substitution of force disintegration and decay com- 
menced and continued until the mistress of the world became 
a mere tributary power. The peaceable remedy elevated 
while the remedy of force degraded. 

I am well aware, however, that the disordered and abnor- 
mal state of things at present, and for years past existing, is 
considered as the result exclusively of the war between the 
sections, Northern and Southern. That we shall sooner or la- 
ter retrieve our losses and recuperate our fortunes, and that 
when we shall have recovered from the miseries and calami- 
ties of war, the desolation and destruction it has wrought, this 
disordered and abnormal state of things will cease to exist- 
Such has often been the healing effects of time upon the ruin 
thus wrought. It will be shown, however, that owing to the 
effetism in institutions hitherto and at present existing, 
brought about by the causes so forcibly assigned, changes im- 
peratively demanded, and that failing or refusing to make them, 
the war was a consequence, and therefore not the cause of 
this disordered and abnormal state of things ; that before the 
Avar, in fact, everything conservative in the government of 
Washington had become effete ; and for this purpose I shall 
briefly review in 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS. 

It is well known that in the convention of 1787, Gen. Ham- 
ilton was a leading member. His idea was a general or cen- 
tral government, ignoring the States as free and independent 
sovereignties, and regarding them as corporations with munic- 
ipal rights. In this it is believed he was sustained by General 
Washington and others of the ablest men in the convention. 



54 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

But as they proceeded they found it impossible to organize in 
the government they proposed to establish any guaranty of 
political rights, such, ^or example, as those designated in the 
Great Charter, and equally impossible in the organism of the 
government to establish any device or contrivance whereby to 
enforce such limitations and restrictions as they sought to im- 
pose on rulers. This was the impossibility, the great problem. 
Could they rely upon the efficacy of written constitutions ? It 
would be easy to define such limitations and the political 
rights of the people in con stitutions, but all experience went 
to show how signally all such experiments had failed; and es- 
pecially in modern times ; in the history of the Great Charter 
of England, denning political rights, extending through a pe- 
riod of two hundred years and more, they saw how hopeless 
such a reliance must be unless such rights could be given a 
place in the orga nism of government itself. For until the House 
of Commons was established with power to say what taxes 
should be collected and how they should be disbursed, and 
the observance of the rights enumerated in the Charter be- 
came a condition precedent to the collection and disbursement 
of the taxes, that celebrated State paper, the British Consti- 
tution, was in fact of no value. 

But when rulers understood they could get no money unless 
the Great Charter was respected, the rights enumerated were 
no longer violated, encroached upon, or usurped. They knew, 
too, such remedy — no, not such remedy, but — such prevent- 
ive was a guaranty of peace. They saw, too, when it was 
adopted how rapidly that people rose to power and distinc- 
tion, renown and dominion, and acquired material prosperity. 
They knew, too, when in ancient times the tribunitial device 
became a part of the organism of the Roman republic, without 
any constitution, peace became a ruling element, strife and 
bloodshed ceased between Patricians and Plebians, and that 
the genius of Rome became in the ascendant, and finally made 
her mistress of the world. They knew, too, when that ele- 
ment of the Roman government became effete, or ceased to 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 55 

perform its functions in the action of the gover nment, and for 
want of new devices or contrivances to subserve the purpose 
which that had, and force being substituted therefor, how the 
fortunes of that mighty and renowned people declined, went 
down, until finally the mistress of the world became a mere 
tributary power. 

For the reasons stated they recoiled from the work of their 
hands. What greater compliment could be paid to the abil- 
ity and patriotism of the men of that convention ? Theirs 
was a patriotism most noble and distinctive, a patriotism that 
added to a love of country a love of liberty. Then it was, be- 
lieving it necessary that something should be done, that 
Messrs. Ellsworth and Sherman, of Connecticut, and Judge 
Patterson, of New Jersey, became the architects of the gov- 
ernment formed, and the constitution as its rule of action, the 
supreme law. They looked to the States whose organized 
power would resist any encroachment or usurpation on the 
part of the common government and preserve inviolate the 
supreme law, the constitution as was believed. But when 
their action was submitted for ratification, divisions became 
plainly manifest. Fears prevailed in both sections of the 
country as to which would control the balance of power, and 
originated the opposition to the action of the convention. 
Their action, however, was ratified. It soon became apparent 
that the restraining and controlling power of the States com- 
bined and united was impossible, and that the conservative 
power of the system lay, not in the union of the States, but 
in an equal division of the States, preserving the equilibrium 
of the sections ; divisions ' created by diverse industrial 
interests. This is clearly manifest from the fact that 
when Kentucky applied for admission into the Union, the 
northern section having no new territory for admission. Ver- 
mont was taken from New York to preserve the equilibrium 
of the sections. And so when Missouri applied for admission 
Maine was taken from Massachusetts to offset Missouri : and 
the equilibrium was preserved until finally the admission of 



56 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

California alone by itself gave the ascendency to the North- 
ern section. And the equilibrium of the States being really 
the conservative element, was destroyed. I purposely omit 
mention of the repeated bitter contests between the sections 
during this period, for I desire to evoke neither passion nor 
prejudice, but to advocate truth in the spirit of truth. It be- 
came, however, more and more painfully manifest, that with 
the effetisrn or destruction of the conservative element, there 
would come a day of terrible reckoning. The question be- 
came who shall control the action of the common govern- 
ment? Each section strove with an energy and ability com- 
mensurate with the magnitude of the stakes in the issue in- 
volved. The common or central government could make no 
encroachments or usurpations on itself. It was the creature 
of the States, and the States, in order to control it, surren- 
dered to it their rights, and becoming organized power in the 
common government, the States controlling it, could control 
the other States so as to promote their own interests. 

By a singular fatuity the Southern States, with one excep- 
tion, and professedly the champions of the Federal system 
%p which the sovereignty of the States was essential, and 
knowing in the progress of events theirs must become the 
weaker section, sanctioned in the common government the 
rights, coupled with the power to coerce a State. In voting 
supplies in men and money they sanctioned the appeal to 
force. 

Strange to say into this contest they entered and apparently 
from choice, although it was then patent to all she was doom- 
ed to be, sooner or later, the minority section. Stranger still, 
the Southern States, with one exception, not only sanctioned 
the right coupled with the power of the common government 
to coerce by force — military power. Not only so, these States 
adopted the Convention system for nominating candidates for 
President and Vice-President, and seconded the same by the 
general ticket system for nominating candidates for Electors in 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 57 

order to insure the vote of their States to the candidates for 
President and Vice-President thus nominated. 

The policy thus adopted and carried out, swept within the 
vortex of the Presidential contest the power and patronage of 
the states. The States were not only thus shorn of the re - 
straining influences they might have exerted on the common 
government, but to the extent they were thus weakened, the 
common government was strengthened, for the offices of the 
'States were within the reach of those who, not only sanction- 
ed this precedent and policy, but who also favored the Presi- 
dential candidate for whom the vote of the State was cast; 
thus subjecting the States, thrc%gh their officers, to the com- 
mon government. This precedent for the precedent of to- 
day becomes the law of to-morrow, and this policy effectually 
destroyed the Federal system, and, of course, the Union ; and 
extorted from Mr. Calhoun the declaration, "if we now raise 
our eyes to view this beautiful system, composed of so many 
vavious separate and independent parts blended into one har- 
monious whole, we shall be struck with the mighty change! 
All are gone, absorbed, concentrated, consolidated in this. 
("The common") government which is left alone in the 
midst of the desolation of the system, the sole and unre- 
stricted representative of an absolute and despotic majority." 
Absolute and despotic, why ? Because sovereignty must re- 
side somewhere.. In a Republic, or government of the Free 
Form, sovereignty must reside in the people; and, since it 
does not reside in the people of the different States respect- 
ively, it must reside in the people taken en masse. A numeri- 
cal majority, then, can decide all questions pertaining to sov- 
ereignty, and, of course, all minor questions. This, then, be- 
come a numerical majority government, and no such govern- 
ment has ever been known to exist through one generation ; 
and it was from the tyranny and oppression of such a gov- 
ernment, the people of France, toward the close of their great 
revolution were glad to escape ; though the only hope of es- 
cape was the Empire. And such a government has given 



58 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

birth to the exclamation that finds a response in every heart : 
" One King is bad enough, but good Lord, deliver us from 
King numbers !" 

It was such a government as this from which the men of 
'76 and '87 recoiled, They then established in its stead, as 
they supposed, through a nicely adjusted equilibrium of the 
centripetal and contrifugal forces, Federal system, forming an 
Union, whereby, as they supposed, consolidation or central- 
ism on the one hand, and a disintegration of States on the 
other, either being fatal to the Union, would be prevented. 
Mr. Calhoun announced the destruction of the Federal sys- 
tem in 1833, and stated, and predicted the calamitous results 
that have followed. 

• Mr. Webster declared if the Federal system as contended 
for by Mr. Calhoun were not destroyed in the destruction of 
the Union we should have States "discordant, belligerent, 
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood." What each said for 
reasons diametrically opposed, has been verified, as we have ex- 
perienced in the miseries and calamities of war. How is this 
to be explained f It is historically true that the men of '76 and 
'87 aimed to establish such a Federal system as was contended 
ed for by Mr. Calhoun. Not only so; it may be admitted that 
the Federal system was everything as contended for by Mr. 
Calhoun. There is then presented for our consideration an 
all important question : Is such a system possible in practice f 
The experiment has been tried and it has failed ; and disas- 
trous in the extreme has been the failure; not because the 
system is false in itself in the abstract, for it is truthful. There 
is, for the purpose of illustration, an analogy between the cen- 
tripetal and centrifugal forces, in matter, and the national and 
federative principles in government, but there is no analog}' 
between matter in the material world and government in the 
political world. In government contrivances and devices are 
essential to put these principles in operation, in the concrete; 
for man is not obedient to the laws of his Creator, as is mat- 
ter. In man the selfish feelings predominate ; and, as already 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 59 

shown, the national and federative principles in government 
are but the duplicates of the selfish and the social feelings in 
the individual, and, as already shown in governments organ- 
ized in reference to political rights with a representation of 
persons, an equilibrium of the national and federative princi. 
pies is impossible, and will be so long as man's selfish feelings 
predominate. The reason is plain : A State is made up of 
individuals, and, as shown in a State whose government is so 
organized, the selfish feelings will control Whatever structure 
of government fails to produce an equilibrium of the selfish 
and the social feelings, renders an equilibrium of the national 
and federative principles in a state impossible. And what 
prevents such equilibrium in one State will prevent it in a 
number, or system of States. Herein was the true cause of 
the failure of the Federal system. There can be no doubt Mr. 
Calhoun saw the difficulty and the danger, for time that tests 
all things, has shown his predictions were prophetic ; and, al- 
though he said it was impossible to over estimate the power of 
truth, when advocated in the spirit of truth, yet he knew that 
truth in the abstract, was of little or no practical value. Fore- 
seeing, as he did, changes were inevitable, and that the 
changes threatened must prove calamitous, he proposed 
nothing until the last time his loving presence adorned the 
Senate Chamber, and then when the supreme hour was upon 
him, he said " a dual executive," and without time for ex- 
planation, his mortal career was closed. 

Mr. "Webster staked the perpetuity of the Union upon the 
Constitution, with the ministration of oaths and the destruction of 
the Federal system, as adopted by the men of '76 and '87, as 
enunciated by Mr. Jefferson in the Virginia and Kentucky rev- 
olutions of '98 and '99 with Mr. Madison's report thereon, and 
as illustrated by the genius of Mr. Calhoun. It is historically 
true, however, that while the Federal system has been demol- 
ished, the Union has not survived. The Union is gone! It 
has no place in State papers — no place in the vocabulary of 
politicians, it has been superseded by the nation ; and, as rev- 



60 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

olutions never run backwards, irreversibly superseded ; and, al- 
though his eyes beheld not the sad spectacle, the sun has 
looked down " upon States discordant, depressed, belligerent 
and drenched in fraternal blood." 

There can be no doubt both had an ambition that was high 
and honorable and noble. Both are historical characters, their 
names and fame are indissolubly connected with the records 
of the country, while the Union each sought so earnestly to 
perpetuate, has perished. The one relied upon the Federal 
system through which to perpetuate the Union, but which, as 
we have seen with the structure of government then existing 
was an impossibility. The other relied upon the Constitution 
with the ministration of oaths; such reliance, however, was 
based upon a theory exploded by the history of the Great 
Charter extending through a period of two hundred years and 
more, as shown in appendix (a) end of this work. Not only 
so, such theory was exploded many centuries ago, leading 
the subtle minded and inquisitive Greek Anaxagoras to ex- 
claim, "Alas for written Constitutions! They are but cob-webs 
through which the strong bieak with impunity, while furnish- 
ing cords to bind the weak.'' They have proved to be a 
snare and delusion to all who have relied upon them. For as 
fihown. Constitution can neither create nor establish, neither 
direct nor control government. On the contrary, for efficien- 
cy and vitality Constitution is wholly dependent upon gov- 
ernment, and unless agencies and instrumentalities for its en- 
forcement and observance be provided in the structure of gov- 
ernment it can have neither efficiency nor vitality. The differ- 
ence between practice and theory, between a machine itself 
and an engraving of it, is not greater than the difference be- 
tween government and constitution. The truth is, there was 
^nothing conservative in the Federal system in itself as it ex- 
isted, nor was there in Constitution of itself, nor with the 
ministration of oaths any thing conservative. The conserv- 
ative element of the system was as clearly shown in an equi- 
librium of the sections, consisting in an equal division of 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 61 

States growing out of great and leading diverse industrial in- 
terests. For it is historically true that prior to the destruc- 
tion of the equilibrium of the sections, on account of indus- 
trial interests, we had peace and a material prosperity unpar- 
alleled. It is also historically true, that although prior to its 
destruction, manifestations of a disordered and abnormal 
•state of things became apparent ; yet it was only upon its de- 
struction this state of things began, menacingly to develop it- 
self and become more and more aggravated and intensified' Un- 
til finally it culminated in war between the sections. The 
war then is not the cause but a consequence of the disordered 
and abnormal state of things resulting from the destruction 
of the equilibrium of the sections, verified by the fact that al- 
though the war has ceased, and ceased for years, this state of 
things still exists ; whereas, had the war been the cause in- 
stead of a consequence, long since, as did the war, it also 
would have ceased. This one fact, although not so designed, 
that the conservative element of the government grew out of 
great and leading diverse industrial interests, and to which 
we are indebted for peace so long continued, for continued 
prosperity unparalleled is a powerful, if not a conclusive, ar- 
gument in favor of the reconstruction in reference to indus- 
trial rights and interests herein proposed. 

I wish, however, to be distinctly understood, for my.object 
is to advocate truth in the spirit of truth. It has been shown 
prior to the destruction of the conservative element we had 
peace and unparalleled prosperity : while, however, the ex- 
istence of this conservative element in the equilibrium of the 
sections was especially indispensable, really to the prosperity 
and peace we enjoyed, I do not contend it was the cause of 
this peace and prosperity. The cause of these results is to be 
seen in the domestic institutions of the South then existing, 
and in the staple products of the South through discoveries 
and inventions of an earlier, but more especially, of a more 
recent date, as I shall now proceed to show : Less than thir- 
ty years have elapsed since the views in chapter VI. were pre- 



62 KEMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

sented as marking the juncture at which we live. In this pe- 
riod less, than one third of our existence as a people, in re- 
viewing them one shall be struck with the vast changes that 
have been wrought. To all in the least familiar with our his- 
tory, it is well known that prior to the invention of the cotton 
gin, the African, as a slave, had a mere nominal value, and the 
people of the South would have cheerfully emancipated him 
could he have been removed out of the country. 

(I have noticed some one of California asserts in positive 
terms that if desired by the white population of the South 
that the African be colonized, the nation would bring all its 
resources to bear to that end. Justice to the whites and to 
the blacks demand this ; and I feel assured an overwhelming 
majority of the white people of the South are for this policy. 
Put the ball in motion.) 

This invention of the cotton gin, however, gave to the Afri- 
can a value that would have been considered fabulous prior to 
that invention. Because he was so admirably adapted to trop- 
ical and semi-tropical regions; and was so efficient as a laborer 
in the productions of such regions, so profitable indeed in the 
cultivation of cotton, that the lawyer quit the bar, the 
judge the bench, and even the minister quit the pulpit, to en- 
gage in cotton culture. 

Through its production a flood of material prosperity was 
spread throughout the country. Through its production a 
market was furnished to the Northwest for her breadstuff's 
yielded in such superflous abundance, making the growth and 
prosperity of that section phenomenal. Not only so ; through 
the cotton culture a flood of material prosperity was spread 
throughout the world, such as had never before been witness- 
ed. Through discoveries and inventions in the production of 
the raw material, and for its manufacture as an article of cheap 
clothing and for its transportation, commerce became all-per- 
vading, and commerce is a wonderful locomotive for the dif- 
fusion of ideas and intelligence; at once a civilizer and chris- 
tianize!', and in that all the pre-requisites were now supplied, 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 63 

including cheap food and cheap clothing, an impetus to civil- 
ization was given, far beyond any such results ever before wit- 
nessed. For through steam power applied to purposes of 
transportation, and travel on the sea and on the land, 
and its application to diversify pursuits and to multiply 
industries material prosperity was assured ; because the in- 
dustries produce wealth, wealth begets material prosperity, 
and material prosperity is but another expression for material 
aid — money, while the machinery through discoveries and 
inventions for field and household purposes furnished to us, 
as rational beings in the time saved from labor, an abundant 
leisure for our moral improvement. But while having almost 
within our grasp in their full fruition all the hopes which such 
a prospect could inspire, and surpassing anything of which the 
Christian philosopher had ever dreamed ; our councils were 
darkened by memorials and petitions from a section claiming 
to be, and believed to be, the most prosperous ; and in which 
discoveries and inventions had been more fully developed 
than elsewhere, praying for an increase of the taxes, ostensibly 
for the benefit of the laborer, technically called operative, be- 
cause engaged in the artificial industries developed through 
discoveries and inventions, upon the ground that they did 
not receive, nor could they be paid sufficient wages or money 
to enable them to advance in civilization, or even to maintain 
their places in its ranks. The taxes were increased until in 
1828 those who had them to pay denounced the bill for their 
increase as a bill of "abominations," although the taxes were 
thus increased, it is nevertheless true, complaints of the diffi- 
culty if not of the impossibility of an advance in civilization 
so far as operatives were concerned, were well founded. How 
is this to be explained ? The explanation can be given : The 
capital (as moneys thus concentrated are called) to put those 
industries in operation enabled the capitalists to put the, 
earnings of the laborer or operative in their pockets, just as in 
England through the operations of that government the la- 
borer's earnings go into the pockets of the aristocrac3 r . 



64 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

That is to say, there was prosperity, the industries did flour- 
ish; but while industrial interests were promoted, industrial 
rights were not protected. 

For proof, look at the social and political evils then mani- 
festing themselves, as shown in the development of the civili- 
zation of the XIX century. The tale is readily told, the la- 
borer unjustly deprived, as I have shown, of his earnings, and 
reduced to poverty, unable to maintain his plac-d ia the ranks 
of civilization became outlawed and degraded; from degra- 
dation driven to crime and insanity. 

In default of such changes as were demanded, this state of 
things grew from bad to worse. From it were evolved moral 
and political phenomena, such as are the invariable indication 
of a transitive period in its broadest sense. The transition 
was painfully manifest in the fact that the capitalist, through 
discoveries and inventions, by concentration of his money was 
doing here what the aristocracy of England through that gov- 
ernment Were doing with the earnings of the laborer, and as 
effectually ; yet this is alleged to be a government of the free 
form, while that is a confessed monarchy. The difference, so 
far as the laborer was concerned, was rapidly disappearing. A 
spirit of wild and fierce fanaticism also an index, and an un- 
erring index of a transition period was developed, and to pre- 
vent outlawry on the part of the laborer conflicts between la- 
bor and capital in the slang of the day called strikes oc- 
curred : for the increase of taxes in the shape of custom 
dues afforded no permanent relief to the laborer. The con- 
test for an increase of taxes did what in the nature of things 
it was impossible to prevent. It increased sectional animosi- 
ties on account of great and diverse industrial interests, but to 
which diversity of interests, as so conclusively shown, the con- 
servative element of the government was due ; whether so 
designed or not, the fact was so. 

The African was the exponent of Southern interests and 
upon the African animosities increased until upon the destruc- 
tion of this conservative element war ensued. A war, not 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 65 

only phenominal but for the stupendous folly of it is un- 
surpassed, everything considered, even by the French revolu- 
tion, of which it has been declared by the ablest men, 
though its events have been correctly enough narrated by 
Frenchmen and foreigners, no one has ever yet given a satis- 
factory explanation of it ; it was a political phenomenon so 
astounding. It has been said, though I have had not the 
data for a correct calculation, that its cost was nearly equal to 
the value of all the cotton that had been produced up to its 
close, and that sum just about equaled the estimated value of 
the. Africans emancipated. 

Through these discoveries and inventions the South had 
been raised to the highest pinnacle of material prosperity. 
Through steam power applied to purposes of transportation and 
travel, and the telegraph to give ubiquitous information her 
institutions which had been the growth of centuries were up- 
rooted ; she was reduced to poverty, and left on the road to 
degradation ; and thus through discoveries and inventions 
was lost — the lost cause, and not through inferior numbers, as 
alleged. For through these contrivances employed by the North 
which had developed them to their maximum power ; to one 
thousand troops was given the efficiency of ten thousand ; 
while the South had, to a great extent, ignored them. I have 
now shown the reactionary influence of discoveries and inven- 
tions on the moral and political world in default of the chan- 
ges they demanded, produced the disordered and abnormal 
state of things preceeding the war, and from which were 
evolved the phenomena, as mentioned in the chapter referred 
to ; finally resulting, as shown, in war. 

Not only has it been disastrous, as stated, but in its concep- 
tion the States as sovereignties, were then ignored if not be- 
fore ; while in its progress and results they were, as such, de- 
molished; and of course the Federal system was demolished, 
the Union with it giving place to the nation for the national 
government alone survives, the national principle alone dom- 
inating ; the Federative principles having been eliminated in 



66 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

the destruction of the Federal system, So that the causes 
really, of our peace and prosperity have been the causes of 
the ruin that has been wrought. 

I have said the prevention of the abuse of the taxing power 
would remedy existing evils, social and political, and would 
necessarily prevent all conflicts between capital and labor; or. 
if preferred, between employer and employees. This question 
was postponed, but not indefinitely, when considering how, 
by a proper structure of government to prevent those engaged 
in one industrial interest from oppressing those engaged in 
another industrial interest by taxing this other interest direct- 
ly or indirectly through the government. For, as alleged, that 
is the usual way in which the evils to be remedied are engen- 
dered, and the conflicts to be prevented are threatened. In 
that aspect the question has been fairly met and settled, in a 
manner that is, or ought to be, satisfactory to all. 

In the example as to railway strikes it was shown, owing to 
the abuse of the taxing power, incomes from travel and trans- 
portation were so reduced that these corporations were com- 
pelled to curtail the number of their employees, or laborers, 
and to reduce the wages of those retained. There is, as I con- 
cieve, but one other mode in which it can be alleged these 
conflicts could occur, than through the abuse of the taxing 
power, and that is that railway capitalists without excuse, from 
the love of money, because they could, should reduce the 
wages of their laborers so that they could neither advance in 
civilization nor maintain their places in its ranks ; and that 
these laborers, to prevent such outlawry, would resort to 
strikes. , How are such supposed conflicts, when threatened, 
to be prevented ? In the first place, with railway capitalists 
as with all other persons, the selfish feelings predominate : 
and if so, their selfish feelings would prompt them to engage 
in such enterprises legitimately, and to conduct them legiti- 
mately, and if so, such conflicts as supposed could never oc- 
cur. If, however, there are men who could believe that under 
such circumstances, railways could be permanently or profita- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 67 

bly conducted, no such men will ever have the capital or ca- 
pacity to bring about such disastrous results. And if through 
governmental oppression and injustice those wielding its pow- 
er would be tyrants — resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. 
No, no ; disguised as it may be, the danger is, as I have said, 
by governmental injustice and oppression; through the abuse 
of the taxing power, directly and indirectly, such conflicts are 
threatened. 

I am abundantly and ably sustained in this respect by Kev. 
Dr. Way land, in his work on Political Economy. Kemovethis 
cause, as would be done by adopting the structure of govern- 
ment proposed, and such conflicts would never occur. But 
what is conclusive on this point is the fact that the conflicts 
which have occurred, and which are threatened, are confined 
to the sections where those interests which have sought 
and obtained the aid of the government to promote 
them at the expense of other interests through the abuse of 
the taxing power, are, and have been, most extensively devel- 
oped; that is to say, those interests originating in the manu- 
facture of cotton and iron, and this the world knows. And 
hence it is that railway capitalists should aid in the recon- 
struction proposed, not only to promote their industrial, 
interests but also to protect the industrial rights of 
their laborers. Because it is really a short-sighted poli- 
cy that would seek the promotion of one's interest at 
the expense of another's rights. Otherwise, as matters 
now stand, and as events are now tending, the battles of 
others will be fought at their expense, at least, in their name, 
whereby this government would become not only a consoli- 
dated but a colossal despotism, under which industrial rights 
would be crushed, when industrial interests could no longer 
be promoted. If such corporations have been unjustly de- 
nounced as monopolies for the exclusive benefit of the few, 
now is the time, and reconstruction leads the way in which 
such charges and imputations may be repelled. 
« I have now shown, and I trust satisfactorily, that all con- 



68 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

flicts between capital and labor, as well as social and political 
evils result directly and indirectly from the governmental 
abuse of the taxing power, and that under the government of 
the United States, as it is., such evils are irremediable and such 
conflicts inevitable. 

It will be remembered the theory was advanced and sus- 
tained by argument, that when either the federative or na- 
tional principle exclusively dominates the development of 
civilization was impossible. I shall now* proceed to verify the 
correctness of that theory by the government of the United 
States as it is, in which, as shown, the national principle ex- 
clusively dominates. In order to do so I shall now proceed 
to show any advance in civilization under this government as 
it is, is impossible. Every advance in civilization is marked 
by an increased material prosperity and an improved moral 
Condition. To these ends we have more, and more powerful 
auxiliaries than any people before us ever possessed. Look 
at steam power, how, through inventions, it diversifies pur- 
suits and multiplies the industries. The industries create 
wealth, and wealth begets material prosperity, material aid, 
-money. As a consequence, the poverty of the poor would no 
longer be their destruction, because material prosperity would 
guaranty to the poor a subsistence — a living; and in so doing, 
would guaranty against degradation. Instead of which we 
are becoming poorer and poorer, as is verified by the frightful 
increase of the social evils of mendicancy, crime and insanity: 
so there is no increased material prosperity. Look, now, at 
the numberless contrivances in labor-saving machinery for 
field and household purposes. These must be designed for 
our good instead of evil. How can they be for our good, how- 
ever, unless the time saved from labor affords us leisure as ra- 
tional beings, for moral improvement ? Instead of which, la- 
bor was never more unremitting nor its demands more exact- 
ing. So then, as there is no increased material prosperity, no 
moral improvement, there can be no advance in civilization. 
So that in practice, as well as in theory, there can be no ad- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 69 

vance in civilization so long as the national principle exclu- 
sively dominates. 

Not only is an advance impossible, but since in civilization 
we cannot remain stationary, we must retrograde ; and to 
show that we are retrograding, let one evil alone be considered, 
that of intemperance, in the use of alcoholic liquors, now 
grown to be an evil of appalling magnitude. 

To maintain one's place in the ranks of an advancing civil- 
ization requires material aid, money. But in a civilization ad- 
vancing there is material prosperity, and since material pros- 
perity begets money, it is far easier than to maintain one's 
place in a civilization retrograding and when there is no mate- 
rial prosperity. To maintain one's place in its ranks, and pre- 
vent a retrogression, that would cast one beyond the pale of 
civilization, and subject him to outlawry, increases the strug- 
gle for material aid; and as there is no accretion of wealth, 
the gains of one are the losses of others, and the struggle 
becomes fierce and fanatical; so much so that men, to obtain 
the money necessary to maintain themselves in its ranks, and 
to prevent an outlawry that would ruthlessly consign them to 
mendicancy, crime or insanity, will sacrifice honor, honesty, 
truth, anything and everything. From this fierce and fanati- 
cal struggle are evolved the moral and political phenomena 
such as have been mentioned in tb.e chapter "On the Juncture 
at which we Live," and in addition, a want of confidence in 
every one, and this mania for strong drink. In this struggle 
deeds are done that weigh " heavy on the heart, sorrows are 
planted in the memory, and troubles are written on the brain,'' 
and hence, for some oblivious antidote, although that oblivion 
be but momentary, men will resort to drugs, narcotics, sopo- 
rifics, liquors, even poisons ; for we know if not victims we 
deserve to be, and hence it is " conscience makes cowards of 
us all." And, shocking to relate, into this fierce and fanatical 
struggle, not only men, but even women and children are 
forced and conscribed. The truth is, moral disease is just as 
infectious and contagious as physical disease, the small-pox or 



70 KEMEDY FOE EXISTING EVILS. 

the leprosy or yellow fever, and hence no one, however pros- 
perous, may consider himself exempt. Sixty thousand at a 
low estimate from this one evil perish annually, entailing in- 
calculable misery and suffering, it is fair to say upon ten 
times the number of women a,nd children putting them on 
the road to ruin, to become mendicants, criminals and luna- 
tics, increasing and intensifying all other evils, and fearfully 
augmenting human misery and suffering, in the want and de- 
struction thus produced. 

Let us take the victims, then, according to the census from 
'50 to '60, and we shall find the insane increasing out of pro- 
portion to increase of population. Bad as that decade is in 
the increase of the insane, the increase in the next decade, 
from '60 to '70. is still more beyond the increase of popula- 
tion. The statistics as to insanity approximate correctness. 
As to mendicancy and crime they are defective. Yet great 
as is the increase in insanity, it is far greater as to mendicancy 
and crime. Add to these three evils the idiots, for idiocy is 
increasing nearly on a par with insanity, and then the victims 
of intemperance, who, although so many commit suicide by 
excessive drink, yet are not ranked as criminals. The in- 
crease of the victims out of proportion to increase of popula- 
tion shows beyond doubt civilization is down grade, and has 
therefore attained its highest possible development, and when 
that point in the history of a people is reached it marks the 
period of their decline and fall. So that if these evils are to 
increase in the future as they have in the past, and as they are 
increasing in the present, it is as plain as if "penciled in the 
heavens with sunbeams," that we are doomed to perish. If 
then we desire or expect the effects to cease we must remove 
the cause. We have seen this mania for intoxicating li- 
quors results from a retrograde civilization. What, then, 
is the cause of this retrograde civilization ? Is it in the gov- 
erning, those who govern or conduct the operations of govern- 
ment; or is it in the government itself; or is it in those who 
are governed — the people? It must be somewhere. It must 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 71 

be in the governing, in the government, or in the people. 

These are at any time important questions, but at this junc- 
ture they are all-important. So much so indeed, if one knew 
how the people would decide and act upon them he could 
forecast their destiny. A truthful and correct answer can be 
readily given, as I shall now proceed to show : The All-wise 
Being has ordained government in the abstract as an instru- 
mentality through which in the concrete, if properly con- 
structed, a people may advance in civilization. If such in- 
strumentality fail, however, to subserve the purposes designed. 
God being all- wise, the defect must be in man's workmanship 
— in his structure of government, in the government itself. A 
truth so clearly demonstrated men will not dare deny it, for 
that would be to deny the omniscience of God, a denial that 
He is All-wise. While, however, men will not make such de- 
nial of the truth directly they will indirectly. There are two 
so-called parties through which the people are divided, one 
has control of the government, the other aspires to its control; 
the one we will designate the ins, the other the outs. The 
outs will charge upon the ins that the cause of the dis- 
ordered and abnormal state of things is their misrule. The 
ins charge the state of things upon the opposition the 
defeat of the wise and salutary laws they wish to enact, and 
the defeat of the conservative policy they would pur- 
sue, — crimination and recrimination follow. In the mean- 
time man in his normal state is always the same, and 
whether among those who govern or those who are governed, 
the selfish feelings predominate. Owing to defective govern- 
ment some officeholders among the ins practice fraud and 
pocket moneys to which they are not entitled. 

These charges are then brought forward by the outs as a 
reason that the ins should step down and out ; pledging them- 
selves to reform such abuses by bringing the guilty to condign 
punishment if they are allowed to step up and in. Reform is 
pledged by the ins, if allowed to remain in. 



72 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

To what do such pledges of reform amount, if made in 
good faith ? If you prevent such persons from practicing such 
frauds the burdens of the people are not lessened. There is 
no promise or pledge to prevent the abuse of the taxing pow- 
er, through which an injustice and oppression are practiced up- 
on the people, to which all the malpractice, malfeasance, pec- 
ulation and fraud practiced, by office-holders with Credit Mo- 
belier swindles thrown in, are not to be compared. So that 
all this fu$s and fury is not to relieve the people but to enforce 
a principle, in technical language, called "Honor among 
thieves." 

Tp such an extent has this disgraceful contest been carried 
that the disinterested spectator and observer of the last pres- 
idential contest could not fail to see the clamor of the rival 
candidates for the office of chief magistrate turned upon the 
question, which of the two was the better police detective, and 
that to prevent one office-holder from getting more than his 
share of the public plunder — a contest in which the people 
really had little or no interest whatever. All the hew and cry 
about reform had this extent — no more. In the mean time, 
the public oppression, through the abuse of the taxing power 
and a retrograde civilization are becoming more and more 
grievous to be borne. Not only so, the conviction is strength- 
ening, that the only guaranty of a living is in the disburse- 
ment of the taxes, and the difficulties of a fair division among 
the- ins are increasing, as well as the dissatisfaction and discon- 
tent among the people at large. These produce a necessity 
for a new programme. Let it never be forgotten that the pub- 
lic opinion rules the world ; not that the public opinion is al- 
ways truthful, by no means; but whether true or false, it gov- 
erns the world. The people are not therefore to look to this, 
to that, or the other man as a means of securing safety, or of 
avoiding danger ; for, as shown, the cause of their perils is not 
in man, virtuous or vicious, but in the government. We could 
not change man if we would; we must, therefore, take him as 
he is, and not fancy him as we would have him. 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 73 

" Put not your trust in princes," is the highest wisdom en- 
dorsed over and over again by our seers and prophets in their 
solemn admonitions to us. If they abandon governmental 
guaranties for their rights and liberties in their reliance upon 
man, his discretion becomes the measure of their rights and 
liberties. This gives you not a choice of rules, only a choice 
of masters. The true public opinion alone you can safely fol- 
low. The public opinion, however, depends upon the progress 
of events, as said in the chapter " Why Napoleon Wrote His 
Life of Caesar;" it was not Caesar that superseded the repub- 
lic and inaugurated the empire, but it was the progress of 
events ; because in their progress they created public opinion, 
true or false; watch, therefore, the progress of events. There 
are in the life of every people historic periods, when a new 
departure must take place,' and then their destiny depends 
upon that departure. The case of Esau is not a mere isolated 
case to teach us only he sold his birthright for a mess of pot- 
tage, but it illustrates a general principle, like all such facts in 
the Book, for it tells us how, afterwards, he could find no place 
for repentance, though he sought it diligently and with tears. 
Caesar meant the same thing in saying "The die was cast," when 
the Rubicon was passed. So did Shakspeare, in saying, 

" There is a time in the 
Affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on 
To pros' prous fortune; neglected all the voyage 
Of their lives is bound in shallows and in quicksands.,, 

In this new programme referred to, an effort is made to in- 
duce the people to follow to their destruction and ruin irre- 
trievable, the false public opinion, and it is wilfully made, 
knowing it to be false. The exponents of this false public 
opinion are to be seen in the following allegations : 

In the first place there are orations from the pulpit and 
leaders in the religious press that teem with denunciations of 
the laboring poor for spending their money for liquor — that 
in so doing they are not only the authors of their poverty 
with its consequent misery and suffering, but become also 



74 REMEDY FOE EXISTING EVILS. 

the perpetrators of crime. So religiously. How. is it politi- 
cally ? In the first place, we are told money is abundant, 
and if there is no prosperity it is because of so much idle- 
ness; that there is a class of people that don't work, will 
not work, but ought to be made to work ; that another class 
ought to be disfranchised, and so on and so on. To enumer- 
ate all such, time and patience would fail me. 

So far as pulpit orators and editors of the religious press 
are concerned I wish to ask them a few questions: Where 
is the defect or fault of this retrograde civilization ? Is it in 
the people, in rulers, in government, or in religion? It must be- 
somewhere. What is civilization ? It is a reflex of a peo- 
ple's religion, It may not be a reflex of the religion they 
profess, but it will be a reflex of the religion they do. If our 
civilization were a reflex of the religion we profess our civil 
ization would progress ad infinitum. It has been conclusively 
shown, however, our civilization is not only not progressing 
but actually retrograding. Is the cause in man whether he 
rules or is ruled, or in government? The All-wise ordained 
government in the abstract as an instrumentality through 
which civilization is to be developed. Government being 
ordained in the abstract it is for man to construct govern- 
ment to put it in the concrete. 

If you allege the cause of the failure is in man, then I say, 
God, being all-wise, knew man perfectly, and to say an in 
strumentality He ordained, if properly constructed, would 
not answer the purposes designed, would be to deny He is 
all-wise, which one dare not do. The fault or failure then 
being not in God nor in man it must be in man's workman- 
ship, in his structure of government — in government If so. 
and there can be no doubt about it ; and since it has been 
shown defective government is in the last analysis the real 
and true cause of our retrograde civilization, and our retro- 
grade civilization the cause, among other evils, of this mania 
for strong drink, it follows conclusively your denunciations 
of the laboring poor who are the miserable victims of this 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 75 

vice as the authors of their ruin,, are not only unjustly and 
cruelly false, but are creating a false public opinion, which 
must, if not controlled, work out their inevitable ruin. The 
true public opinion teaches the cause of all this misery and 
suffering is not in man but in defective government. If in 
man the evils engendered are irremediable, if in government 
remediable. Not only so, if sincere you must regard the re- 
ligion you profess as a remedy and a sovereign remedy for 
sin ; and if a remedy for sin it must be a remedy for all evil 
for sin is the source and origin of all the ills to which flesh is 
heir. This, if sincere, you must admit, and so says Colonel 
Ingersoll, and he asks an all-important question, which, if 
sincere, you should answer. He asks, Why is this sovereign 
remedy not applied ? For human ills are not only more nu- 
merous, more aggravated and threaten more fatal results 
than ever before since the dawn of modern civilization, and 
of these ills the poor are mainly the victims, the very people 
to whom the divine Author of the religion you profess made 
His most affectionate appeals and to whom He showed His 
most wonderful condescension. Why then is not this sov- 
ereign remedy, so freely offered without money and without 
price, why is it not applied ? Colonel Ingersoll says, It's all a 
delusion and you are deluded creatures, else hypocrites," and 
looking at the frightful increase of human ills and their 
victims, is it at all surprising that Infidelity overshadows the 
land? And now what do the professed followers of Jesus 
say? If sincere they will aid in forming the true public 
opinion and admit the true cause is not in man, not in the 
religion of Jesus, a Divine personage, the Son of God, but in 
government. Else if it were not so why do you not preach the 
Gospel to the poor in which its great and chiefest excellency 
consists ? 

You do not preach it to the poor! and before these pages 
are closed I will show that owing to defective government it 
can not be preached to them. . 

It is plain to any one who can see to the end of his nose 



76 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

this whole country, in fact the whole world is verging towards 
civil strife, owing to the disordered and abnormal state of 
things at present and for years past existing. Years ago 
England's Premire, as chancellor of the University at Glas- 
gow, in a deliberate and well considered address, said that 
" Nothing, nothing but a religious war could give a solution 
to the existing conflict. This is to say through centuries of 
injustice and oppression in European countries the masses of 
the population have not only become brutalized and degraded 
but have been driven to infidelity. Now the money power* 
whether concentrated in a hereditary or simply a moneyed 
aristocracy are determined to rule or ruin, yet knowing they 
can't govern without some sort of religion, and since the 
utmost limit of endurance has been reached they will add to 
a civil strife the horrors of a religious war. This converted 
Jew is like most new converts are, very zealous, especially 
when they have some worldly purpose to accomplish, some 
worldly ambition to gratify. He knows whether he become 
converted for the sake of office or not. Others must judge 
for themselves. He was D' Israeli then, he is Lord Beaconfield 
now. However that may be this converted Jew is a splen- 
did exponent of this mean and infernal programme for the 
creation of a false public opinion for a purpose that can not 
be mistaken. And now I ask pulpit orators and editors of 
the religious press, Will you take issue with Colonel Ingersoll 
and show the cause of these ills, these terrible evils is not to 
be traced to the religion you profess as an adequate remedy 
for them but to defective government. It is said Colonel 
Ingersoll is in the interest of the money power. If so I pre- 
sume it is only temporarily, for whether it be his desire or 
not if his doctrine be accepted, his, like Othello's occupation, 
will soon.be gone. Or do you mean to out Ingersoll and become 
permanent allies of the money power in an abhorred union of 
Church and State so-called? That depends upon whether 
you are for God or for Caesar — not forCsesar, for Ceesar was not 
only a mighty man but he was a good man; for when the 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 77 

poor of Home did cry for bread Caesar wept. But then ha 
was a Pagan and we are Christians, so when the poor cry for 
bread we put them in prisons to reform them as for their 
reformation our religion is not sufficient, and if that will not 
do drive to crime and insanity. So the question should read 
are you for God or for the Devil? for the Devil is per- 
sonified in the false public opinion. You must decide. 
This is no time, nor is there any place for neutrals. As when 
events were drifting towards the Savior's crucifixion, so now 
those who are not for Him are against Him. We shall see 
what we shall see. So it is religiously ; how is it politically ? 
We find the so-called patriots the office-holders and the office- 
seekers and the secular press fully up to and breast with 
the religious world in their efforts to create a false public 
opinion. To this end their batteries are leveled against the 
licentiousness of the people ; but never directed against the cupid- 
ity, the vice and profligacy of rulers ; of the moneyed men. 
Now, in Rome, when the poor became impoverished, they 
were fed at the public crib, and such men as the Gracchi, the 
noblest Romans of them all, had sumptuary laws enacted 
whereby the rich were made to defray out of their superflu 
ous abundance the expenses of the government. How a«e 
expenses of this government met ? It has been shown labor 
always indirectly or directly paid the taxes. But owing to 
the public oppression the substance of the people has been 
consumed while through its invariable concomitant the 
private injustice the money and wealth of the country ha^-e 
been concentrated in the hands of the few, whereby the in- 
dustries of the country have been paralyzed throwing millions 
of the laboring poor out of employment into a coerced idle- 
ness. And although those who labor are so much overtaxed 
there is a deficiency in the income of the taxes from labor on 
account of this coerced idleness. 

How is this deficiency to be supplied? Money, we are tol$, 
is abundant, but only in the hands of the few. Mone$ T , 
however, has become the masters of those who govern, 



78 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

so no money for the relief of the people for the support 
of the government can be extorted from them. But this ma- 
nia for strong drink, a phenomenon of a retrograde civiliza- 
tion is seized upon, and laws are passed licensing the manu- 
facture and the sale of liquors. So that those who live by the 
government, if they can't live on the labor of the laborer, 
will live by his vices ; and this is done under the pretext of 
licensing vice, they say, to prevent crime, which is wholly un- 
true ; for every one knows to sanction vice is to encourage 
vice, and to encourage vice is to encourage crime ; not one 
crime but every crime. The object of this subterfuge is 
plain. It is to create a false public opinion to decide that 
the victims of this vice and of all evils, social and political 
are also the authors of their ruin, which is wholly intrue. 
And should the injustice and oppression become unsupport- 
able , if as Dr. Wayland suggests, they should conclude that 
no change can be for the worse and resort to force as the only 
hope of relief, then the moneyed power will furnish the ma- 
terial aid to coerce, through ball and bayonet submission. 
So that having made themselves masters of those who govern 
moneyed men through the government, fit machine as it is 
for such purpose will become the masters of the people. 
Thus will be verified the solemn and prophetic declaration of 
the venerable and philanthropic Peter Cooper, that the coun- 
try is rapidly passing into the hands of a moneyed aristoc- 
racy, of all aristocracies the most loathsome and detestable, 
because destitute of soul or patriotism. And he might have 
added, of all tyrants the most tyrannical, because themselves 
slaves — slaves of avarice, the most sordid of all vices. For, 
the world over, the slave by nature, or in condition if trusted 
with power becomes of all taskmasters the most cruel. 

It is very true no public man who rules or aspires to rule 
has, as yet, dared to say publicly the people are incapable of 
.^{/"-government. 0, no; " the great purpose, noble or ignoble, 
is ne'er a'estaken unless the deed go with it." 

To show, however, that I am right in this effort to form a 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 79 

new programme for the ceation of a false public opinion I 
will quote from the uncontradicted remarks of General 
"Weaver in his place as a Eepresentative in Congress, from Iowa 
General Weaver quotes a leader from one of the most influ- 
ential magazines of the country. Here it is : 

" We cannot do what the French government once did un- 
der similar circumstances, banish fifty thousand of them to 
colonial or penal servitude ; and it is a great pity that we 
cannot. If we could gather the whole disgusting multitude, 
wash them, put new clothes upon them, and under military 
surveillance and direction set them quarrying stone or raising 
corn or cotton for ten years, we might save some of them to 
dency and respectability, and relieve the honest people of the 
country of their presence and their support. If we cannot 
do this, however, there is one thing that we can do. Every 
State in the Union can gather these men wherever found 
into the work-houses, where they can be restrained from 
scaring and praying upon the community, and made to earn 
the bread they eat and the clothes they wear. It is neces- 
sary , of course, to throw away all sentimentality in connection 
with them. The tramp is a man who can be approached by 
no motive but pain — the pain of a thrashing or a pain of hun- 
ger. He hates work, he has no self-respect and no shame 
and by counting himself permanently out of the pruductive 
and self-supporting forces of society he counts himself out of 
his rights. He has no rights. He has no rights but those 
which society may see fit of its grace to bestow. He has no 
more rights than the sow that wallows in the gutter, or the 
lost dogs that hover around the city squares. He is no more 
to be consulted in his wishes or his will in the settlement of 
the question of what is to be done with him than the bullock 
in the corral. Legislation concerning this evil seems to have 
been initiated in the various States ; but at this writing we 
cannot learn that anything effective has been done. It would 
be well if the States could work in concert in this matter, 
but one great State like New York or Pennsylvania or Ohio 



80 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

has only to inaugurate a stringent measure to drive all the 
other States into measures that shall be its equivalent. The 
tramp whose freedom is imperiled in New York would fly to 
New Jersey or to New England, and New Jersey and New 
England will be obliged to protect themselves. So one pow- 
erful State can compel unanimity of action throughout the 
country. The Legislature of New York had a bill up a year 
ago which came to nothing, but something must be done 
somewhere very soon if we propose to have anything like 
safety and comfort in our homes, or to relieve ourselves of 
voluntary, vicious, and even malicious pauperism." 

The aiders and abettors of this writer, in other localities, 
will shout, " Down with the tramp ; there is but one step be- 
tween the highway tramp and the highway robber, for when 
he whistles the little dogs, Tray, Blanche, Sweetheart and all 
will bark. General Weaver says he is a Christian gentleman, 
and if so, he thinks he certainly has a right to quote the 
Scriptures as Satan has to reprove sin. And he says, if one 
will not work he should not eat." But there's another ver- 
sion. Suppose one has worked and will work so long as he 
can thereby earn bread for his wife and little ones. But if his 
idleness is coerced and he be thrown out of employment, then 
what ? 

If he voluntarily refuse to .provide for his household the 
Book says he is worse than a heathen. Of course one would 
conclude in a land favored with an abundance, not to say a 
wasteful profusion of God's blessings, somewhere one can earn 
a subsistence. And this editor, learned as he is, in the Scrip- 
tures, must know even the Patriarchs when subsistence was 
impossible where they were would change their location, and 
sometimes went from one country to another. So this so. 
called tramp, as an honest and industrious laborer, started 
westward. While he knew he ought not to eat unless he 
worked, he also knew he could not work unless he did eat. 
A paraphrase which probably did not occur to this sapient 
editor. And as everybody must go west he thought surely the 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 81 

people of the rural districts through which he would pass 
having a superabundance would feed the wayfaring man, 
especially as he would have no means to ride on the cars, 
but must travel on foot, they will, seeing his necessity, be 
the more willing to "do unto others as they would have 
others do unto them." As anything was better than to sit 
still and see them starve, he left his family. 

True, memory would be ever busy with the past; but 
hope guilded the future, and beckoned him onward. But 
alas for him ! times grew from bad to worse, and the fur- 
ther he went the worse they got. He could neither look 
nor feel cheerful ; he could not, lie dare not give utterance 
to his griefs, his doubts and fears. Times got to be such 
that even those engaged in the agricultural industry had to 
struggle for a living. Notwithstanding the earth yielded 
its fruits of increase so abundantly. The labor of those 
thus engaged is unremitting; it leaves no time for improve- 
ment — no time for repose — and, of course, no time could 
be spared to the so-called tramp. 

Gradually hope grows dimmer and dimmer, while mem- 
ory becomes busier and busier with the past. He has 
heard but seldom, but now the news from his family 
comes with crushing weight; for, broken-hearted, his wife 
has sunk into a pauper's grave ; his children pass into alien 
hands. And whose fate can be so inconsolable as one's 
whose memory of the past can inspire no hope for the fu- 
ture ? Some people — and I fear this editor is of them— 
think poor people, because they are poor, have no affec- 
tion, no kindly feeling. And I suppose that's the reason 
he thinks certain of them have no more rights than brutes. 
But one who knew has said: While there are "tortures the 
rich can never know/' there are "tortures the poor alone 
can feel." Hope, with all its pleasing delusions vanished, 
leaving the once, honest and industrious laborer to brood 
over sorrows and griefs inconsolable — memory alone sur- 
viving — a memory of crushed hopes and broken hearts. 
And now he realizes the sad truth that, although this land 
is blessed with Heaven's blessings in a profuse, not to say 
wasteful abundance — although no plague, no pestilence, no 
famine has swept overi it, blighting its prosperity and marr- 



82 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

ing the happiness of its population, yet its prosperity and 
happiness have been as effectually blighted and destroyed 
as if the wrath of an offended God had been visited upon 
it. Who, I ask this editor, has done these things ? Who 
are their authors ? Yet the aiders and abettors of this ed- 
itor, in the creation of this false public opinion, as blood- 
hounds on his trail, shouted, and continued to shout, there 
is but one step from the highway tramp to the highway 
robber ! He is accused of burning the labor-saving ma- 
chinery of the farmer. Why should he ? for this editor 
says he will not work. He is accused of burning the far- 
mer's grain when harvested. Why should he? the more 
abundant breadstuffs are, the more apt he would be to get 
something to eat. 

Could any one be surprised that the once honest, indus- 
trious laborer should become the degraded tramp. The 
laborer is degraded, but who degraded him ?„ It sometimes 
happens — and this I guess is a case in point — where the 
name of the real offender appears on the back, and not 
where it should be on the face of the indictment. But 
General Weaver says the editor is a Christian ; if so, after 
howling so lustily with the wolves on the trail of the labor- 
er, until ne becomes the degraded tramp, to be consistent, 
I presume he also sings Psalms with the saints. If, how- 
ever, he be a real Christian, he would rather prevent deg- 
radation than punish the degraded. And if so he'll battle 
for the reconstruction proposed, seeing the cause of this 
retrograde civilization is in defective government, in order 
that when reconstructed the gospel may be preached to the 
poor : for that will — and is the only power that will — pre- 
vent the degradation of the poor. And if their degrada- 
tion be prevented, crime will be prevented ; because from 
degraded beings the ranks of criminals are recruited. 

The object, however, is hardly disguised. This is the 
logic : The money power can control the population in and 
around the money centers. We must, through a false 
public opinion, control the honest-hearted people of the 
rural districts, and make them believe the so-called tramp 
is not only the author of his own ruin, but will be, unless 
outlawed, also their ruin. Then we can throttle the tramp; 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 83 

and then what ? Yes, then what ? Tackle the working- 
man. Look at it ! throttle and outlaw the so-called tramp, 
because they allege he will not work. Tackle the work- 
mgman for what ? It must be because they will work. 
Hard to please ! 

"Ah what a tangled web 



Do these so-called Christians weave 
When they do practice to deceive." 

For proof, let us take another individual Gen'l Weaver 
introduces to us. His name is Cook, his occupation is 
that of Lecturer, and his place of abode is B-o-s-t-o-n. 
Read what he says. Here it is : 

"Joseph Cook, in a lecture in Boston, says that if the 
workingmen of this country demand legal-tender currency 
we will disfranchise them if it has to be done at the end of 
a bloody civil war^" 

As has been shown, through the public oppression the 
people have been reduced to poverty, and through the pri- 
vate injustice the money and wealth of the country have 
been concentrated in the hands of the few, whereby the 
industries are paralyzed, brought to a standstill, laborers 
thrown out of employment. Now Dr. Wayland, in his 
work on political economy, says the greater the capital 
the more numerous the laborers employed and the better the 
wages they receive. Now if money is abundant it is in the 
hands of the few, so that if it is capital it is idle capital. 
But Mr. Webster said it was the duty of those who govern 
to give protection and security to labor, for labor is the 
source of all prosperity. The workingmen therefore ask 
those who govern for a legal-tender currency — the Green- 
back proper, in order that labor may find in employment 
security and protection. But Mr. Cook says if they, the 
workingmen, insist upon a legal-tender currency they must 
be disfranchised, even at the cost of a long and bloody 
war if necessary. Mr. Cook is for a hard money cur- ■ 
rency, whereas hard money never has been a currency, a 
circulating medium as has been already shown in modren 
time j it's a relict of barbarism. 

The object is plain ; capital may be idle, and that's all 



84 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

right : but labor must not be idle. The laborer has been 
reduced to poverty,, and we'll keep him poor. This pro- 
gramme of Mr. Cook's is a very bloody one, for in a civil 
war Dr. Wayland says, "The sword enters every house; the 
holiest ties that bind men together are severed, and no pro- 
phet can tell the end from the beginning." What sort of 
men are these Boston men? In this latitude we would 
consider such men monsters in human shape. He, I pre- 
sume, was for a bloody war to enfra?ichise the African, and 
now he's for a long and bloody war to disfranchise the 
working white man. The next individual, Gen'l Weaver, 
commends to our notice is a member of Congress from 
New York — a Mr. Chittenden. He is neither so blood- 
thirsty as Mr. Cook, nor so wrathfully pious as the editor 
of.Scribner. He does not therefore appear so much the 
ass that stole the Lion's skin as the Jackdaw that stole the 
Peacock's feathers. He, like Mr. Cook, recognizes in the 
African the man and brother, but can't* recognize in the 
while man the man and brother, unless the white man is 
rick. 

I suppose he wished the country to understand that he 
was rich and had no poor kin folks. Exit Mr. Chittenden. 

His constituents are to be pitied. I must present to 
General Weaver my thanks for the exhibition of personal 
independence and the able and patriotic remarks he made 
on the "floor of Congress. I beg leave, however, to suggest, 
and think it will not be considered impertinent in me, that 
in my opinion a party can't succeed with only one plank in 
their platform. The greenback is a very strong one, and 
all that would be desired as to a circulating medium, pro- 
vided that would not be like the money we have had, con- 
centrated in the hands of the few. To prevent such con- 
centration there is now nothing, absolutely nothing. 

The question is to have capital that is not idle capital. 
The concentration of the greenback as of gold and silver 
in the hands of the few can be prevented onty by preventing 
the abuse of the taxing power. The structure of goverment 
herein proposed would prevent that abuse, and in preven- 
ting that abuse would protect industrial rights, the rights of 
labor, and promote industrial interests. This is something 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 85 

tangible to be seen and felt, and if you will substitute the 
reconstruction herein proposed in place of the glittering 
generalities about labor and the rights of the laborer, it 
would inspire hope and confidence. Rights in the abstract 
are of no practical value. To be valuable practically, 
they must and will be in the concrete, if you succeeded 
with such a platform. Such a platform tongued and 
grooved would be a strong and substantial piece of join- 
er's work. And a party on such a platform of princpiles 
would be invincible. 

Yon should also have an appropriate and suitable ban- 
ner. It should exhibit the painting of the Six Alls of 
London, of the monied aristocracy hereditary in England, 
not yet hereditary in this country. You know the first all 
is the king dressed in his royal robes, swaying his scepter 
and saying. "I rule over all." And then the second all is 
the priest, dressed in his saintly robes of hypocrisy, with 
the motto on his breastplate, "No State without a king, no 
church without a bishop, and saying, I pray for all." Then 
the doctor, who says, "I cure all." The lawyer, "I plead 
for all." The soldier, "I fight for all." While the laborer, 
at the bottom, clad in tattered garments, with -v\ r oe-begone 
countenance, meekly saying, "I work for all." Look at it. 
It reads thusly : The right to vote belongs to the property 
holder, because property should have security and protection. 
The laborer should not vote because labor should not have 
security and protection. Mr. Webster said, it was the right 
and duty of those who govern to give to labor "security 
and protection." Compared to the American aristocracy 
of to-day, one is forced to exclaim, what a simpleton 
Daniel Webster was ! This is equality before the law. Now 
look at the greenback or capital and labor platform, and 
see how harmoniously they are blended. To vote is the 
right of the property holder and the laborer, because it is 
the duty of those who govern to give security and protec- 
tion to labor and property. This is equality under the law. 
Look at the laborer on this platform, and see how happy, 
how robust, how contented. See him pointing the op- 
pressed laborer on the monied aristocracy platform to our 
seventh all, and our all and in all our Lord incarnate, and 



86 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

saying He died for all. Not only so, he taught us we should 
do unto others as under like circumstance others should do 
unto us. And not only so, religion is not only a mode 
of worship, but also a system of government, and is " God's 
own and only system of government." It is also seem- 
ingly the contrivance introduced by the Divine Wisdom to 
teach us after what pattern we should model our institu- 
tions, in order that our civilization when developed should 
be a reflex of the religion we profess. If it was, it would 
progress ad infinitum; whereas it is not only not progressing, 
but retrograding. 

This then of itself is conclusive against the government 
of the United Statse as it is, and in favor of the reconstruc- 
tion proposed. For it would, if so constructed, prevent 
civil strife, and religious and all other wars, for it would 
supercede parties. 

The father of his country, in his farewell address, to his 
countrymen, solemnly warned us against party spirit as 
having hitherto proved to be the bane of all Republics, 
though parties were seemingly indispensable. The life, the 
vitality of party is inequality, this so called equality before 
the law, as exhibited in the picture showing the laborer, 
because he is a laborer, is not the equal of any, but be?ieath 
all and on a level with the brutes. But our equality under 
the law in the reconstruction proposed, when consummated 
would supercede parties, so that j^government wilL then 
triumph over its last enemy ; because it would be an adap- 
tation of effete institutions to the characteristics of a new 
order of things, as seen in discoveries and inventions, 
especially those of a more recent date, whereby we would 
rise to a higher plane of civilization, a civilization that would 
progress ad infinitum, embodying the principles and illus- 
trating the sublime precepts of the religion we profess, 
and for the first time in its reflex; because for the 
first time in government of man's contrivance, there would 
be governmentally constructed a rendition to God of the 
things that be God's, as well as to Ccesar of the things that 
be Csesar's. This requires the subject should be presented in 
a duplex aspect, religious as well as political. I shall 
therefore show in 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 87 



CHAPTER IX. 

The reconstruction proposed as a remedy and preventive 
would be a rendition to God of the things that be God's, as 
well as to Caesar of the things that be Caesar's.* 

In the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 22 and verses 
20 and 21, our Lord uses^the following language: " Ren- 
der therefore to Caesar the things that be Caesar's ; to God 
the thing that be God's." 

In these memorable words of our Lord we have presented 
for our consideration, God the creator and ruler of this 
universe; Caesar the political ruler of a temporal power or 
government whose dominion extended over the whole 
world as then known, with a population of one hundred 
and twenty millions of people; and money — money "the 
love of which is the root of all evil," because that love is 
rooted and deeply rooted in the strongest and most un- 
worthy of the anarchic passions of our sinful nature — cov- 
etousness. Not only so ; these memorable words convey a 
command — a positive and imperative command as to our 
duty to God, and our duty to Caesar as a representative 
man of political rulers, and necessarily involving the con- 
sideration of two subjects that ever have been and ever 
must be of paramount importance in the minds of men — 
religion and government. The first question then which 
presents itself is what things belong to Caesar governmen- 
tally considered? 

As to governmental institutions or political power, we 
may, say as of all things else, there is no power in this uni- 
verse but God's; for he made all things, and all things 
belong to Him, however considered. God, however, having 
ordained government, all power and authority necessary to 
conduct governmental operations p are, of necessity, if not 

*[Note. — I would not omit to state, however, that when the work 
was presented to the eminent men for examination whose opinions 
are quoted, there was nothing written upon the currency question ; 
nor was there anything presented that would fairly claim their 
assent to the views this chapter presents. In justice to them I 
feel bound to make this statement, and shall now proceed with the 
argument.] 



88 A REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

expressly implied, delegated to those who, by his direc- 
tion or permission, conduct such operations. Hence in 
this sense, as the language referred to implies, some things 
belong to Caesar, and the question is what things belong to 
Caesar ? He was the ruler by and thro igh whom the opera- 
tions of the Roman government were conducted. To ad 
minister this government, to co$duc£ its operations, money 
was essential, and as the Jews had acknowledged the do- 
minion of Caesar as conqueror, and as the penny showed 
him bore the image and superscription of Caesar, our Lord 
said, evidently meaning not only the tribute money, for 
that was but one thing; but also the obedience and authon 
ty to which as a ruler he was entitled. Our Lord moreover 
did not stop with an answer to the question as propounded, 
though full and complete. He went further and said, " to 
God the things that be God's." So that in government 
Caesar had not exclusive dominion, potent ruler as he. was, 
entitling him to passive, obedience and unlimited submis- 
sion. God had things too in this government, and the ques- 
tion is, what things belong to God in Cessans government. 
It has been shown government is an instrumentality through 
which alone civilization can be fostered and developed, and 
it has been shown when developed civilization is a reflex of 
a people's religion. . It may not be a reflex of the religion 
they profess, but it certainly is a reflex of the religion they 
do. Religion is a mode of worship, and the Jews professed 
to worship the only living and true God according to the 
law of Moses; while the Romans, in their mode of wor- 
ship, according to their religion, recognized neither this Be- 
ing nor the law of Moses. This command of our Lord 
then must have meant that the civilization of the Jews 
must be a reflex of the religion of the Jews — that they must 
not apostatize and become idolatrous worshippers, as were 
the Romans. Because in such a civilization, being a reflex of 
the religion of the Jews, would be necessarily embraced all t/ie 
things that belo?ig to God. 

That this is a correct rendition of the things belonging 
to God and Caesar respectively there can be no doubt. It 
gives to the words of our Lord, in their true meaning and 
intent, a far more potential significance than that assigned 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 89 

to them by commentators, who limit and restrict them to 
the subject matter and the occasion that gave them utter- 
ance. Not only so : in addition to what has been said, con- 
clusive as it is, I will add, at this time and previously all 
govermental institutions had been constructed upon a re- 
ligious foundation with a political superstructive. For, as 
already shown, no government could exist unless the social 
state were preserved ; and that to preserve the social state 
without a religion was impossible. In such institution, the 
priests exercised not only a sacredotal, but also a magiste- 
rial authority. To answer the ends designed, however, 
religion must command our confidence and inspire our 
faith ; but to command our confidence and inspire our 
faith, a king, priest and prophet that was infallible was de- 
manded by the world, and was essential to satisfy its wants 
and necessities. Such an one is Jesus ok Nazareth, a di- 
vine personage, the Son of God, who, upon his ascension, 
was crowned "Lord of all," having had conferred upon 
him all power and authority, ecclesiastical and political, or 
'religious and secular; and who afterwards established a 
New Kingdom or Church of Christ, and his religion in 
this New Kingdom is God's own and only system of govern- 
ment, thus making the distinction between this New or 
Spiritual Kingdom and government such as God ordained 
broad and deep. So that the line between the things of God 
and the things of Caesar is' not to be drawn, as heretofore, 
between these kingdoms or powers, but in the temporal 
kingdom in goverment. In fact, when this command was 
given, the Spiritual Kingdom had no existence. It has 
been shown that religion is not only a mode of worship, 
but a system of government ; and requiring, as it does, an 
infallible king, priest or prophet, and being essential to 
government ordained by God in the abstract, it follows 
such governments must be kingly, preistly and prophetic in 
form. 

It does not follow, however, by any means that temporal 
powers or governments should have a temporal king. 
Before Messiah's asscension and prior to the establishment 
of the Spiritual Kingdom, such temporal kings did not 
even then consist with this religion. For when the Tho- 



9 o REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

oratic government of the Jews was formed, there was, by 
direction of God, an implied, if not express, prohibition of 
a king. When, therefore, Samuel, one of their judges, said 
the Jews, in demanding a king, had rejected him as a judge, . 
he is informed it is not Samuel, but the Lord as their King 
they rejected, and the Prophet, Hosea, informs us that 
God, in anger, permitted to the Jews a king ; while it is 
very certain, from the period of the inauguration of their 
first king, with but two intervals, the fortunes of that re- 
nowned people were down grade, and so continued until 
their land had been made the very abomination of desola- 
tion, and themselves loosing their nationality, were scattered 
among all nations, much less, after the establishment of 
the Church of Christ, or Spiritual Kingdom, could such 
pretensions be allowed. For there is another King, one 
Jesus, and he possesses all power and. authority in heaven 
and on earth, political and ecclesiastical, or secular and re- 
ligious. .Such assumption of power and authority as a tem- 
poral king would be, therefore, an usurpation of the power 
and authority of the only lawful Sovereign and Ruler of • 
the Universe. 

The New Dispensation demanded great and radical 
changes ; for this New Kingdom, or Church of Christ, 
was to supersede all temporal powers or governments ; for 
its head or king is to put down all rule and authority, 
secular or religious j for he shall put all things under his 
feet. This was the chief stumbling block to the Jews, 
while to the Greeks it was foolishness. Their affections 
were absorbed in the one great idea of temporal power and 
temporal aggrandisement. Governmental institutions, 
previous to and alter Messiah's assension, were and must 
be religious as well as political, so that through them the 
Redeemer's kingdom shall be extended, for it must finally 
supercede them. But now, and since Messiah's ascension 
and the establishment of this New Kingdom, or Church of 
Christ, no more sacrificial altars, the sacerdotal authority of 
the priest belonging to the New Kingdom whose king is 
not only an infallible king, but also an infallible priest 
and prophet, requiring all who assume or are entrusted 
with power and authority in government to act as God 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 91 

would, were he personally exercising such functions, 
for they are God' s ministers.. Such is a true rendition of the 
things that belong to Caesar and God, respectively, with 
the obligations they impose. 

The tribute money next demands our attention. It has 
been seen money was as essential to advance in civilization, 
or even to maintain one's place in its ranks, as to conduct 
governmental operations. 

It has been already shown that civilization is a reflex of 
a peoples' religion, and if the religion we profess command 
our confidence and inspire our faith in the development of 
a civilization embodying the principles and illustrating the 
sublime precepts of this religion, it would be a rendition 
to God of all the things that be God's, governmentally con- 
sidered. Our civilization would then progress ad infinitum. 
And now, having shown in the rendition to Caesar, as a rep- 
resentative man of temporal powers or governments, that 
he is entitled to taxes or money sufficient to conduct 
governmental operations for the purpose governments were 
ordained of God, whether tribute money or not, and no 
more, it follows that to give more would be virtually to 
refuse to God what we should render to him. For what- 
ever of a peoples' earnings more than is necessary to con- 
duct governmental operations if given to Caesar, is virtually 
to refuse to render to God the things that are God's. Be- 
cause material aid is essential to advance in a Christian civili- 
zation ; and through a Christian civilization alone can the 
Redeemer's Kingdom be extended. Hence, as the abuse 
of the taxing power can go to such an extent as to prevent 
the great mass of the poor who, we are assured, we shal- 
always have with us, not only from advancing in civiliza- 
tion, but even from maintaining their places in its ranksl 
and who are Consequently outlawed as mendicants, crim- 
nals or lunatics; and to be thus outlawed is to be not only 
thrown without the pale of civilization, but to be left with 
out hope and without God in the world; if the re 
construction proposed will prevent the abuse of the taxing 
power, all who seek to extend the Redeemer's Kingdom 
should aid in the adoption of the reconstruction proposed. 
For just as certain as our selfish feelings predominate, if such 



92 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

abuse of the taxing power can be, it will be perpetrated. 
That the evils engendered by such abuse do hinder, im- 
pede and obstruct the free course of the Word, so that it 
cannot be glorified so far as these victims are concerned, 
is too plain for argument; but for them the Saviour died, for 
he died for all. Not only so : evil does not inhere in any 
ordinance of God, for that would be to make him the author 
of evil, which is impossible. Hence from this ordinance of 
God, evil may be eliminated ; at least to such an extent as 
will make it subserve the beneficent purposes designed by 
the Beginant Being who ordained government. \nd here, 
in its religious aspect, the argument in favor of the recon- 
struction proposed as a remedy for social and political 
evils — the products only of defective government, while the evi- 
dence of a diseased civilization — might well close. But such 
is the perversity of human nature and the force of error 
long entertained and deeply rooted, I will present this sub- 
ject in another aspect that must be concluisvejto every ra- 
tional mind. 

The pros and cons — arguments for and against — may not 
be conclusive on a question of right or wrong. But let us 
suppose the one or the other view presented to be correct, 
and follow it out to its legitimate results ; if these shock the 
moral sense we know that view of the question must be wrong. 

We will then proceed upon the assumption that it is the 
duty of professing Christians, under the command of our 
Lord, to pay tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to 
whom custom is due; that is to say, whatever taxes Caesar, 
the temporal power or government, may levy should be paid, 
just or unjust; that this command of our Lord imposes 
only the obligation of passive obedience and unlimited sub- 
mission of all Christians to the powers that be in reference 
to taxes, because the powers that be are ordained of God. 
If there is any one obligation more forcibly imposed upon 
Christians than any other, it is to care for the poor, not only 
as to their temporal, but also as to their spiritual wants and 
necessities. Under the old dispensation, such instances 
are numberless ; and that informs us, as a reason I sup- 
pose for the obligations thus imposed, that the poverty of 
he poor is their destruction. 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 93 

It has been shown, however, that through the abuse of 
the taxing power, directly and indirectly, vast numbers of 
the poor find themselves out of their earnings, not only 
unable to advance in civilization, but unable even to main- 
tain their places in its ranks, because so much is taken as 
taxes that it leaves not enough for such purpose. They 
are then thrown upon Caesar or the government for care 
and protection — upon the very persons and instrumentality 
whereby they have been reduced to this condition. Of 
course, then, their wants and necessities would be circurri- 
scribed within the very narrowest limits. As a consequence, 
they sink lower and lower, until finally they become de- 
graded. From degraded beings, the ranks of criminals are 
recruited. And this -class, finding themselves thus de- 
graded through poverty., and without any fault of theirs, 
will run the risk of perpetrating crime to rise above this 
degradation, and thus become criminals. This class is 
strongly reinforced by another class, who, finding them- 
selves helplessly and hopelessly sinking into the degradation 
which poverty entails, will, in order to keep above such deg- 
radation, perpetrate crime ; for, if poverty degrades and 
crime can do nothing more, where's the difference ? While 
there is a third class who revolt at the degradation from 
either cause, and in preference abdicate humanity — com- 
mit suicide. While there is yet another class who, through 
harassing cares and anxieties, are driven to insanity in their 
endeavors to escape such degradation. 

Now it has been shown, and conclusively sh6wn, that 
social evils, all of which may be summed up in mendican- 
cy, crime and insanity, and the political evils we suffer, 
result from the assumption that God imposes no obligation 
upon Christians to resist the abuse of the taxing power ; 
and of course, if no such obligations are imposed upon 
Christians, no one is under such obligations ; for whose 
duty is it upon such assumption to resist the powers that 
be? It has also been shown, and conclusively shown, that 
as a consequence of these evils our civilization is retro- 
grading ; and as a consequence of this, there is a fierce and 
fanatical struggle, from which there has not only been a 
frightful increase in these evils, but from it have been 



94 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

evolved all the moral and political phenomena that so lam- 
entably characterize our times, and among them this mania 
for strong drink. So frightful has the intemperate use of 
alcoholic liquors become that, at a fair estimate, sixty thou- 
sand persons annually perish from this one evil alone ; 
while thereby incalculable misery and suffering are entailed 
upon ten times that number of women and children, put- 
ting them on the road to ruin, to become mendicants, 
criminals and lunatics. That is to say, more than half a 
million of women and children are thus annually sacrificed. 

When Jonah regretted, the Ninevites, by a timely re- 
pentance, had averted the threatened destruction, he was 
given by the Lord to understand there were in Ninevah 
one hundred and twenty thousand little children that did 
not know the right hand from the left, and much cattle. 
See, God was merciful. 

Now of this more than half million of human beings, women 
and children, it is fair to suppose there are more' than one 
hundred and twenty thousand little children who do not 
known the right hand from the left A greater than Jo- 
nah has said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and for- 
bid them not, for of such is the kingdon of heaven; and 
he took them in his arms and blessed them. Yet we 
christians, so-called, drive the little ones from the Saviour; 
and thus it is, placed beyond the pale of civilization, and 
left without hope and without God in the world, women 
and children- — in being consigned to a death that lives, while 
denied z/life that dies — are worse victimized than are the vic- 
tims of that sanguinary monster, Juggernaut, who are at once 
crushed to death beneath the wheels of his ponderous car. 
And if this be not enough to shock the moral sense, nothing, 
nothing can. Throughout all heathendom a parallel can 
not be found, neither as to the number and character of 
the victims immolated, nor as to the infernal orgies around 
the sacrificial altars. 

The argument is conclusive and irresistible in favor of 
the structure of government proposed, in its religious as 
well as in its political aspect; not only because such struc- 
ture would be a rendition to God as well as to Caesar of 
the things belonging to each, respectively, but that to pro- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 95 

ceed upon the assumption such rendition was not true, 
would lead to results at which not only would the judgment 
revolt, but which would shock the moral sense. Would lead, 
did I say? Yes, and have led to such results, although 
revolting to the judgment and shocking to the moral sense. 
For they show we'have been brought down to the social degra- 
tion of the heathen — a degradation no civilization can long 
survive, while it is very certain no people can long survive 
their civilization. So that to the perils of a transition pe- 
riod, through which few peoples, if any, pass in safety, have 
been added the terrors of a day of retribution. For proof 
let us bear in mind, although the religion we profess is a 
remedy for sin, for all human ills, to-day human ills are 
more numerous, more aggravated, and threaten more fatal 
results than ever before since the dawn of modern civili- 
zation. 

The characteristic of the Jieathen world is their sac- 
rifice of human victims. We do the same thing, only 
not in the same wav ; our own mode being less merciful, 
ourselves being witnesses, for multitudes, in order to escape 
our sacrificial altars abdicate humanity — commit suicide. 
And how has this retrograde civilization been brought 
about ? Through government, of course, because govern- 
ment is the only instrumentality through which civilization 
can be developed. That it is owing to defective govern- 
ment there can be. no doubt, for this fact has been 
demonstrated ; and that, owing to the abuse of the taxing 
power, those w r ho conduct its operations, finding labor 
unable to supply the amount required for this purpose, re- 
sort to the vices of the people to supply the deficiency. Un- 
der the false and miserable pretext of preventing crime, 
they sanction vice in the laws governing the manufacture 
and sale of liquors. To sanction vice, however, is to en- 
courage vice, and to encourage vice is to encourage crime. 
This is true, office-holders themselves being witnesses ; for 
judges charge grand jurors that the immediate cause of 
nine-tenths of the pauperism and mendicancy and crime is 
the intemperate use of alcoholic liquors. It is fair to 
presume that not only judges, but every other office-holder, 
from the President down, puts more or less of this money 



96 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

in their pockets; and it is — if what they say be true, that the 
intemperate use of liquors is the cause of nearly all the 
pauperism and crime — fair to presume more or less of 
this money is moistened with tears of women and children, 
and often stained with blood. Some, however, if not all 
who are sent to the penitentiary for putting money in 
their pockets, do so to satisfy hunger, which is neither 
moistened with tears nor stained with blood ; and who, be- 
fore the righteous Judge of all the earth, is the more guilty, 
the officeholder or the penitentiary convict? When one 
sees an instrumentality ordained of God, for purposes the 
most beneficient, so degraded that after reducing the peo- 
ple to poverty, encourages to vice and drives to crime and 
insanity, we might well ask, Could political prostitution go 
further, or sink a people to a lower depth ? 

I have meant nothing personally offensive to office- 
holders nor to liquor dealers, wholesale or retail. In this 
country all such are the agents of the people, and what- 
ever one does by his agent he does by himself; and such 
being the case, every citizen who does not bring all his in- 
fluence to bear for remedying these evils, is in the same cate- 
gory with officeholders and liquor dealers ; and not only 
so : in the sight of God he is just as criminal as are the vic- 
tims of this mania for strong drink, and of all other evils 
flowing from the same source. 

Dr. Wayland says, in his work on Political Economy, 
when an instrumentality (that is government), designed as 
the ultimate and faithful refuge of the friendless, becomes 
an instrumentality of injustice and oppression, it is then 
that people, believing that no change can be for the worse, 
rush into the horrors of civil war, when the sword enters 
every house, and the holiest ties that bind men together are 
sundered, and no prophet can tell the end from the begin- 
ning. Is not this precisely our case and condition ? Mil- 
lions are collected mainly through the misery and suffering 
inflicted upon women and children, not only the most 
friendless but the most innocent and helpless of the com- 
munity ! Well may Dr. Wayland ask, When the antidote 
to evil becomes the source of civil war, what hope for man 
is left ? And what is civil war ? National suicide. What 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 97 

says the righteous Judge of all the earth ? When I send my 
judgments upon a people they need not think to escape — 
no, although they had among them such men as Noah and 
Daniel and Job. I sayeth the Righteous Judge give them 
up to sorrow and drunkeness. Have we not enough of this? 
Can we not disearn the cup of forbearance is full to over- 
flowing on account drunkeness grown to be an evil of such 
an appalling magnitude? More over sayeth the Righteous 
Judge I 'darken their understanding. Look at the frightful 
increase in insanity, nine-tenths of whom it may be said 
are not bereft of reason through providential visitation but 
through.harassing cares and anxeities. 

Even the pagan understands whom the gods intend to 
destroy they first make mad ; so that the christian real or 
so-called can read his fate without the aid of a dictionary 
or of maginifying glasses in the teachings of history pro- 
fane and sacred, peoples persih through suicide. And yet 
so-called christians instead of repenting in sackcloth and 
ashes are challenging a fate more intolerable if possible 
than that denounced against the Ninevites and more intol- 
erable if possible than that visited upon the cities of the 
Plains. For although a greater than Jonah has appeared 
we are still following ''the multitude to do evil." Like 
the so-called statesmen and politicians following the false 
public opinion, when traced to its source the false public 
opinion of the so-called statesman and the so-called chris- 
tians when traced to their source it will be found have a 
common origin being rooted and deeply rooted in the doc- 
trine of total depravity ; as I shall now proceed to show. 
All know the public opinion true or false governs the world ; 
but what constitutes the public opinion is the first question 
which presents itself? It is composed of two elements: 
moral and physical power, or moral power and force. 
Moral power has its source and origin in religion, and its 
influence depends upon the extent to which the religion we 
profess commands our confidence and inspires our faith. 
Professions being merely expressions of opinion are of lit- 
tle or no consequence; and hence the saying "error of 
opinion," may be tolerated, because the faith thus inspired 
is without works, and is therefore a dead faith. The faith 



9 8 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

that takes hold jaf doctrine, however, is a living faith, be- 
cause doctrine impels to action, and thus faith produces 
work. This is the faith that the Apostle meant when he said, 
Show, me your works, and I will tell you your faith j for 
faith being an instinct of the human heart, where the treas- 
ure is, there the heart will be. Hence if the doctrine be 
true, the .moral power in its ascendancy over force will pre- 
dominate, and we shall have the true public opinion. 
Whereas if the doctrine be false, physical power' or force 
will in its ascendancy over moral power create the false 
public opinion. . So that accordingly as the moral power 
or force predominates, we have the true or the false public 
opinion. And since, whether true or false, public opinion 
rules the world, upon the public opinion man's happiness 
or misery mainly depends. Man was created to be happy 
and was happy. He was also created a free agent, and as 
such his selfish feelings necessarily predominated. Be- 
cause if the selfish and social feelings were in equilibrium, 
he might or might not be a free agent; for then it would 
depend upon circumstances whether he acted upon his own 
volition or not. If the social predominated he would be 
at the bidding of others. So in neither case supposed; but 
only in the predominance of the selfish feelings could he 
be a free agent. To be a free agent, freedom of choice is 
indispensable. To choose reason is essential ; so also in 
choosing to do right or wrong, there must be a sense of 
right and wrong to determine him in his choice, and which 
we call conscience. So that man as a free agent was crea- 
ted a physical being ; having bcnes and muscles, thews and 
sinews to till, to cultivate the garden ; he was also an in- 
tellectual being; having reason to enable him to choose, and 
a moral being having a conscience to inform as to what 
was right and what was wrong. Being created a free agent, 
responsibilty attaches, and where responsibility exists obliga- 
tions may be imposed, and were imposed, to keep the law 
of his creator. Having freedom of choice to obey or dis- 
obey, and an infallible conscience of right and wrong, he 
violated that law, and in its violation he sinned, and sin be- 
ing the law-breaking power, the anarchic passions, as ani- 
mosity, hatred and ill-will, were engendered, which destroyed 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 99 

his happiness; for hate makes man miserable. Not only so : 
he forfeited his life, for the wages of sin is death. Such 
and so great was the ruin wrought. But all who recognize 
the existence of the*only living aud true God, recognize 
Him as a being all-wise, all powerful and every where 
present — omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent; and not 
only so, as a being altogether benevolent, benignant. 
And if so, the works of his providence must be commem- 
surate with the works of his creation. Man was created to 
be happy and was happy, yet his happiness was destroyed. 
How is his happiness to be restored? He was created to live, 
yet he has forfeited his life and must die; how then can he 
live? In the consummation of the plan of redemption 
through the religion of the Son of God, man may not only 
recover all he has lost, but more. For although the an- 
archic passions engendered by sin have made him misera- 
ble as a victim of hate, and his free agency is so much 
impaired, his reason so clouded, his conscience so much 
perverted, that he can not choose to obey the law of God 
as to works, his free agency is not annihilated, for his selfish 
feelings essential in his creation to his free agency survive; 
his intellect tho' clouded is not entirely darkened; his con- 
science, though perverted and no longer infallible, is not 
silenced ; so that he may yet choose to obey the gospel, 
which is the law of love, and if he choose to love God 
supremely, and because he loves God supremely is con- 
strained by the love of Christ to love his fellow man as 
himself, because he so loved them as to give his life for 
them, he will enjoy happiness here in this present time. And 
not only so; though he die, the race is to be perpetuated, to 
live; and love being a sublime sentiment of the soul, 
and therefore indestructible, he shall also enjoy the heavenly 
.falicity hereafter; and hence it is true, " though a man 
die, yet shall he live again.'''' Because this religion, is a 
remedy for sin ; and not only lifts the sinner out of sin, but 
places him beyond the power of sin. So that, he truly 
gains more than was lost, for this religion has brought life 
and immortality to light, making those who obey the gos- 
pel -'in Christ complete." But since no remedy applies 
itself, and since conscience is no longer an infallible guide, 



ioo REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

and since it would not be just and merciful to require one 
to do right, without instruction as to what was right and 
how to do right, to make the works of providence commen- 
surate with the works of creation, a revelation from God to 
man was also essential, making known to man this sover- 
eign remedy for sin with directions for its application, that 
he may know how to do right and be happy. 

How was this remedy to be made known? How could 
it be made known but through the utterances of the Holy 
Spirit — holy men speaking as by the Spirit they were moved 
to speak. Such a revelation is contained in the Bible. It 
furnishes us instructions for the performance of our duties 
in all the relations of life. It furnishes us all thai is essen- 
tial to the soul's salvation, in making known to us this 
sovereign remedy for sin, with directions for its application 
so plain that the wayfaring man, though a simpleton, could 
not err therein, and is therefore a guide to our consciences. 
All, then, who admit God's works of providence are com- 
mensurate with His works of creation are bound to accept the 
Bible as inspired, or furnish one answering these purposes 
as well, and as well or better authenticated. Man knows 
he is miserable, yet wishes to be happy, and believes he 
was once happy. Of all rewards, happiness is the most 
coveted. 

Has mere human wisdon ever revealed to man a solu- 
tion of the problem, How to be happy ? Look around 
and about us; what do we see but destitution, misery and 
suffering ? To ask is to answer the question : No, no. 

" By the wonderful powers of the mind — the powers of 
analysis combination and generalization — man may trace 
causes to their effect; he may resolve complex subjects 
into to their elements ; he may raise himself from a mere 
gazer at the stars to the high intellectual eminence of 
Newton and La Place, and astronomy itself from a mere 
collection of isolated facts to that beautiful science which 
displays to our admiration the system of the universe.' 7 
But tell me, oh tell me, was there ever brought within the 
range of telescopic vision, the planetary system however 
vast, the constellation however brilliant, that could com- 
pare in its effulgent glory with that star revealed to shep- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 101 

]ierds in their nightly watch upon Judea's plains, and to the 
repositories of human learning, the magi of the East, when 
the good news, the glad tidings, the great joy of peace on 
earth and good will toward man, was brought down from 
heaven on angel wings, and proclaimed by angel voices, 
amid allelujah shouts of glory to God in the highest! 
Tell me, oh tell me, did ever seer or prophet behold a horo- 
scope of earthly king or potentate that could compare in 
glory with that cast by the star that proclaimed the natal day 
of our New-born King, the Prince of Peace, which display- 
ed hi letters of living light, the gospel — a remedy for all 
human ills. Why then is not this remedy applied ? Be- 
cause the directions for its application have not been fol- 
lowed, as I shall now proceed to show. 

At the commencement of His ministry upon earth, its 
divine author said, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me 
to preach the gospel to the poor ; to open the prison doors 
and let the captives go free, etc., etc. What did He 
mean ? The poor constitute a vast majority of all popula- 
* tions ; and Solomon tells us, " the poverty of the poor is their 
destruction. " And on account of the trials and temptations 
to which more than all others they are subject, during his 
sojourn upon earth, our Lord not only made to this class his 
most affectionate appeals, and to them showed his most 
wonderful condescensions, but upon all his followers was 
repeatedly and solemnly enjoined a care and considera- 
tion for them ; antd above all, that the gospel should 
be preached to them. Because He knew, if preached to 
them in sincerity and in truth, it would, and was the only 
power that would, resist successfully the gravitation of pov- 
erty to degredation; and hence the poverty of the poor 
would no longer be their destruction. For then our civili- 
zation, being a reflex of His religion, would progress ad 
infinitum ; and through the temporal blessings vouchsafed 
to us by the unchangeable Jehovah, we should have mate- 
rial prosperity ; and materially prosperous, the poor could 
earn a subsistance and also advance in civilization — leaving 
only the naturally imbecile a charge upon christians, so 
few in numbers as to be no burden to them; while the 
criminal would be only monsters in human shape, who 



102 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

'would perpetrate crime for the sake of crime ; and the 
lunatics only those bereft of reason by providential visita- 
tion; and all together-would be no burden to any community. 
Then, indeed, the prison doors might well be opened, for 
there would be few or no prisoners to confine. But the 
gospel has not been, and is not, preached to the poor. Ex- 
cuses are useless and out of place — the fact is as alleged. 
And, as a consequence, we have a civilization that would 
shame the enlightened pagan, and which it would be blas- 
phemous to call Christian; for the plain reason that, in 
failing or refusing to preach the gospel to the poor — -who, as 
already stated, constkue a vast majority of all populations, 
and who, we are assured, we shall always have with us — 
the gospel has been eliminated from the social state or society; and 
since those who compose the social state also compose the body poli- 
tic, it has also been eliminated from the body politic. And hence 
it is, having been eliminated from the social state and body 
politic, the gospel, though the sum and substance of all 
truth, is, as to them, an abstract truth; and hence as truth 
in the abstract, as already conclusively shown, is of no prac- 
tical value, we see how social and political evils are engen- 
dered that so effectually hinder and impede the free course of 
the Word, so that it can not be gloiified in the application of 
the gospel as a remedy for sin ; nor, as a consequence, as a rem- 
edy for social and political evils. 

Social and political evils, it has been shown, result from 
a diseased civilization, which is the result of defective govern- 
ment. True, the moral sense of many having been shocked 
at such results, who, being charitably disposed and piously 
inclined, have sought through benefactions, public and pri- 
vate, and the establishment of eleemosynary institutions, 
to remedy the disease; but all to no purpose. In fact, 
if the object of those who employ such reasons be, as 
it is fair to presume, to prevent degredation, according 
to all human experience in all lands, pagan and so-called 
Christian, it has defeated its aim and purpose. In ancient 
Rome, when the poor were fed by the State from the pub- 
lic crib, what a change was wrought in the character of 
the noble and independent Roman ! No longer self-reliant, 
having thereby lost his self-respect, we no longer hear from 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 103 

him the exclamation once uttered with pride and exultation? 
''I am a Roman Citizen !" How long in a like condition, 
under like circumstances, could we expect our own country- 
men to feel and to act under the inspiration" of a far nobler 
sentiment than influenced the Roman, and which should ani- 
mate every citizen of a Christian land, that " having learned 
to fear God, they know no other fear." Not only so : while 
such means could not prevent degredation, but might un- 
der some circumstances prevent a degradation that would 
directly lead to punishment, at times like these — although 
the duty is always obligatory upon Christians to relieve 
the unfortunate — they could not if they would. The only 
hope is to put the gospel truth in the concrete, so that it may 
be applied as a remedy for sin, through a christian civili- 
zation, as in the reconstruction proposed, which is really a 
rendition to God of the things that be God's, as well as to 
Caesar of the things that be Caesar's. 

This doctrine of total depravity teaches such rendition 
in the reconstruction proposed is impossible ; and not only 
so : although the remedy for sin is sovereign, with directions 
for its application, such as to choose, to beleive, to repent, to 
turn, etc. ; in a word, to obey the gospel, the law of love. 
This doctrine teaches we can do none of these things — can- 
not even choose, and cannot, because totally depraved, 
apply the remedy. Milton, it is conceded, has reconciled 
man's free agency and God's justice and mercy with the 
ruin of the fall, upon the ground that "reason is choice." 
Upon the assumption that God's works of creation and 
providence are commensurate, man has now the same free- 
dom of choice he had in his creation — -not, it is true, to 
obey the moral law, or law of works, but to obey the gos- 
pel, the law of love. . If, however, reason is choice, and 
man cannot choose, he cannot reason, and must therefore 
be either an idiot, a mad man, or brute. But this doctrine 
is not only shown to be absured, but false — utterly false; 
for it not only denies God's works of creation and provi- 
dence are commensurate, but proceeds upon the monstrous 
assumption that there is no difference beween depravity and 
degradation. Man may be depraved in his manners, in his 
morals, in his religious convictions, and we may degrade 



io 4 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

the man, but we cannot deprave the man. Not only so: in 
teaching that one is depraved because he is degraded, leads 
to the conclusion if he is not degraded he is not depraved, 
and is therefore the very leaven of the pharisees, of which 
the. Saviour cautioned his followers to beware, for it teaches, 
" I am holier than thou." I have money and I have prop- 
erty; I am above want and destitution, and shall not be 
degraded, and therefore I am not totally depraved. Thou 
hast neither money nor property ; art not therefore above 
want and destitution, and may be degraded; therefore thou 
art wholly depraved. Accordingly, through close corpora- 
tions, edifices, called churches, are constructed that vie with 
ancient pagan temples in magnificence. The visitors to an- 
cient pagan temples were mainly the rich, because they 
could leave offerings; and, it is alleged, this class mainly con- 
stitute the Sunday visitors to the modern church — though it 
was claimed, as an evidence of the truth and excellence of 
Christian religion, that rich and poor worshipped to- 
gether. However this may be though, the advocates of 
this doctrine are seldom degraded; but who are the most 
depraved, the advocates of this doctrine, or those who are 
made the victims of social and political evils ? Which, ac- 
cording to this doctrine, are iwemediable, I leave the public 
to decide. But what is more than all, and worse than all, 
this doctrine, in denying to man volition, annihilates his free 
agency; and, in annihilating his free agency, renders the 
ruin of the fall irreparable, for it subjects him to the rule of 
force. It has been urged with great plausibility that, to 
employ force, was the temptation of our Lord when the 
vision of universal monarchy was presented to him. The 
temptation appealing to his humanity thereby ; why become 
a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and finally to suf- 
fer crucifixion, when, having an omnipotent power, you can 
rule the world by force ? However this may be, the gospel 
repudiates force ; and whoever appeals to force, repudiates 
the gospel. Accordingly, we construct penitentiaries that, in 
their sombre and gloomy appearance, contrast strikingly 
with the magnificence of our churches ; and while to the 
Sunday visitors to our churches is preached the law of 
love, to the inmates of the penitentiaries the law of force 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 105 

is not only preached, but practiced. Through these so- 
called reformatory institutions, if the gospel cannot, we can 
reform them. So we not only employ force, but make mer- 
chandise of them. We deny to them, as an incentive, the 
earnings of their own labor, as that would be in derogation 
of the law of force ; and, to make their reformation more 
complete, we send them forth from their prison in a manner 
as penniless and friendless as was Hager of ancient re- 
nown — only, instead of sending them into a wilderness, we 
place them in society, but under the ban of a false public 
opinion as totally depraved. Not only so : but as ^ast 
numbers, in their efforts to escape degradation, the penalty 
of the total depravity doctrine, through the harassing cares 
and anxieties of a so-called Christian civilization, are bereft 
of reason, we construct asylums, in their external appear- 
ances vieing with our churches. But their inmates, while 
escaping the odium of total depravity, are yet subjected to 
the law of force, according as medical treatment requires. 
I beg leave now to ask, What is the object in thus expen- 
ding so much money — aggregating many millions? Chris- 
tians can neither hope nor expect to supercede thereby the 
gospel, though that is the effect so far as these inmates of 
prisons and asylums are concerned. They must know 
that neither money nor medical skill can remedy social or 
political evils. Is it not the necessity for the preservation 
of society or the social state these millions are expended ? 
This is the necessity. But since it has been shown that 
the higher sanctions essential to the preservation of the so- 

. cial state could be found only in religion, is it not plain to 
the humblest understanding, in seeking through such ex- 
penditures of millions in constructing prisons and asylums, 
that the melancholy truth is, that the religion we profess 
does not command our confidence and inspire our faith, 
and that the total depravity doctrine is only an excuse for 
this want of faith or unbelief ? And if so, how can we exult 
at these evidences of a so-called Christian civilization, be- 
fore which the amphitheaters of pagan Rome, with their 
gladiatorial exhibitions, grow pale ? Yet we boast that, 
having advanced so prodigiously in a so-called Christian 

' civilization, under the glare and glitter of materialism, we 



106 REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

are directing our earnest attention to Christianizing the 
heathen world, through missionary operations. True, we 
cannot prevent the degradation of our own people, nor 
when degraded lift them out of sin, because totally deprav- 
ved ; but then we can lift the heathen out of sin, though 
degraded as well as depraved — always provided we can get 
money enough. 

Can any one tell me in what quarter of the globe the 
flag of conquest and subjugation has not floated along 
side the ensign upheld by the heralds of the toss ? So 
this doctrine, at home or abroad, creates a public opinion 
sanctioning force, and must result, carried out to its legiti- 
mate end, in that abhorred union of Church and State, 
so-called. This is the doctrine that has chained martyrs to 
the stake, and shed so much of innocent blood that if col- 
lected in one grand reservoir its advocates might well nigh 
swim in it. This is the doctrine that has drenched this 
land in blood, and brought us to the low estate to which we 
are reduced And not oniy so : it has produced a lethargy 
and indifference, a vis inatia, well nigh impossible to over- 
come. And, unless repudiated, who so blind as not to see 
in "the rapid progress of those inauspicious events which 
for years past have been casting their ill-boding shadows 
before them," that the final catastrophe which marked the 
period of Messiah's advent is inevitable — now, as then, the 
demolition of existing institutions, when likewise perished 
civilizations and peoples? Attesting, by the highest au- 
thority, sacred and profane, the divinity of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, whose mission was duplex — the establishment of the 
Spiritual Kingdom and governments in accord therewith. 
There was nothing in the works or words of the Saviour while 
on earth to excite prejudice towards him. To-day the Jews 
declare he was an eminently good man. But that re- 
nowned people at one time possessed great material pros- 
perity, and, power, and dominion. And athough, through 
adverse fortune, brought very low, they still expected through 
force a restoration to power and dominion, with a material 
prosperity surpassing anything of a like kind they had ever 
realized. And these expectations were predicated upon 
the Messiah's advent. But when he came, although the 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 107 

Roman yoke was very galling, he did not exert physical 
power to relieve them from the dominion of that cast-iron 
government; but proclaimed a New Dispensation. The 
democratic government constructed by God's direction, 
they reasoned, must survive the Roman, cast-iron as it was, 
and we can bear the Roman yoke, as galling as it is. 
But then here is Jesus, and he proclaims a New Dispen- 
sation; and on account of his wonderful works, his sub- 
lime precepts, the people love him. If, however, we 
substitute the New Dispensation for the old, all hopes of a 
temporal kingdom that will surpass Solomon's in all its 
glory must vanish. How then to defeat this New Dispen- 
sation was the question". The conclusion was to crucify 
its divine author which they did. The Romans allowed 
the great apostle to preach this dispensation without mo- 
lestation, until it became patent the religion of the Romans 
no longer commanded their confidence and inspired their 
faith; while the religion preached by Paul was fast gain- 
ing the ascendancy. But if this religion be substituted 
for, paganism the Caesars would no longer be Pontifex 
Maximus or High Preist, and the throne of the Csesars 
must topple. So they slaughtered Paul, as his own country- 
men had his Master before him. Subsequent events, in 
their fulfillment of prophetic declarations, prove conclu- 
sively the religion of Jesus of Nazareth was of divine 
origin, and of course that its author was a divine person- 
age; and that those civilized peoples alone could hope to 
survive whose civilization is indeed a reflex of their religion. 
Yet whenever it is proposed to ameliorate the condition of 
the race, through the greatest of earthly blessings — good 
government — through which a Christian civilization may be 
developed, whereby humanity may be exalted, we are met 
with a false public opinion, created by this total depravity 
pravity doctrine — of all doctrines the most abominatble. It 
paralyzes all efforts, because it crushes out all hope. To-day 
we are as effectually as the Jews, though not in the same way, 
hindering, impeding and obstructing the free course of the 
Word. And unless governmental institutions make way for 
this New Dispensation, which "alone contains a key \o the 
doubts and mysteries by which the mind is agitated whenever 



108 REMEDY. FOR EXISTING EVILS, 

raised above the mere objects of sense," now, as at the 
period referred to, ' ' the cloud-capped tower, the gorgeous 
palace — aye, the solemn temple itself shall be toppled to 
the ground and leveled with the dust!" And what, let me 
ask, is this depravity in which this pernicious doctrine so 
persistently inculcated is so deeply rooted ? Theologians, 
as well as lexicographers, define sin to be " a native de- 
pravity of the heart;" and since " all words and their defi- 
nitions are convertible terms," then depravity, whether to- 
tal or partial, must be sin. And since God, in his infinite 
mercy and goodness, has provided, in the religion of his 
Son, a remedy for sin, the chief end of man should be to 
glorify God; because if "sin has abounded, grace much 
more abounds." How glorify God ? In the application of 
this religion as a remedy for sin ; and which, if a remedy for 
sin, must be a preventive of degradation. Its Divine Au- 
thor said, " I am come that they might have life, and that 
more abundantly." Hence man will see in this religion 
those higher sanctions essential to the preservation of the 
social state — the preservation of which is essential to the 
continued existence of the race, that it might live, and de- 
velop a civilization the reflex of this religion- — such a civil- 
ization being essential not only to prevent degradation, but 
also to the exaltation of humanity and man's happiness. 
No one who will read Presscott's " Conquest of Peru," and 
learn of the civilization developed under the government 
of the Incas, can doubt the possibility of a civilzation .that 
shall be a reflex of the religion of Jesus, if this religion com- 
mands his confidence and inspires his faith. And then, if 
he will read the work of the great Christian philosopher, 
Dick, on Covetousness, and learn how, through the abuse 
of the taxing power, there are concentrated in the hands of 
a few families within a radius of twenty or thirty miles 
around London money and wealth enough to pay the na- 
tional debt of England, though so enormous as to defy 
computation ; and then if he will consider the millions on 
millions expended for the confinement and punishment of 
the victims who, owing to the abuse of the taxing power, 
are directly and indirectly, through governmental oppres- 
sion and injustice, degraded, he will see that men are driv- 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 109 

en to the total depravity doctrine to find an excuse for the 
social and political evils thus engendered, and the misery 
and suffering thence resulting. Not only so: if he will 
consider that material aid is essential to extend and advance 
the Redeemer's kingdom, he will see in the prostitution of 
a material prosperity flowing from the temporal blessings 
covenanted by Jehovah, to ends so ignoble a reason all- 
powerful for the reconstruction herein proposed ; not only 
because it would be virtually a rendition to God, in a Chris- 
tian civilization, of all the things that belohg to God, but also 
because, in preventing degradation, it will supercede the 
vast expenditures to punish the degraded — supercede even 
all public and private benefactions, but for temporary relief. 
Because it will, in superceding the law of force, put in ac- 
tive exercise the motor power of the religion of the Son of 
God, in that sublime sentiment of the soul, " love." And 
thus he will rise from the platform of the human philan- 
throphy to which the love of fame invites, to the platform of 
the divine philanthrophy. For, while throughout the meas- 
ureless past, as well as in the living present, liberty has 
been and is man's pleasing hope, his fond desire, he will 
realize that where there is no religious liberty, there can be 
civil liberty ; for " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
liberty." So that in superceding the law of force, he is 
gradually extending that kingdom, wherein alone prevails 
the perfect law of liberty. 

This, then, is the question, Christians : Will you choose 
to prevent degradation , or to punish the degraded? Choose 
ye this day whom you will serve. If the Lord be God, 
serve Him; if the Mammon of all unrighteousness, ''the 
least erected spirit that fell from heaven," be God, then 
serve him — serve him in the inculcation of a doctrine that 
must, sooner or later, consign all who embrace it to a fate 
worse than " fable ever yet hath feigned, or fear con- 
ceived." 

But let us hope, under the true public opinion, for a 
civilization the reflex of the only religion that can prevent 
degradation — that can ameliorate the condition of the race 
and exalt humanity — a civilization that progress ad infinitum, 
with an intellection constantly expanding j with a material 



no REMEDY FOR EXISTING EVILS. 

and moral condition constantly improving; because accom- 
panied by blessings temporal and spiritual — temporal bless- 
ings, in a material prosperity, through a Christian civile 
zation that will. 1 ere long bring about that happy period 
of which inspired men have delighted to speak. A faith 
that glorifies God in works — that reflects the light of 
His glory — must be a rational faith; and under its in- 
spiration, we shall behold, 

" Ere long, a fairer morn arise, 
'Mid purer airs and brighter skies; 
When Force shall lay his scepter down, 
And Strength shall abdicate his crown." 

For, if we but listen, 

" E'en now we'll hear, with inward strife, 

A motion toiling in the gloom, 

The spirit of the years to come, 
Yearning to mix himself with life. 

"A slow developed strength awaits 

Completion in a painful school ; 

Phantoms of other forms of Rule, 
New Majesties of mighty States. 

"Th& warders of the growing hour, 
Though vague in vapor, hard to mark. 
And round them sea and air are dark, 

With great contrivances of power." 



A-^zpeistxdzzh:.. 



These statements, by way of synopsis of Magna Charta, are taken 
from Prof. Dew's Compend of Ancient and Modern History. 

Provisions of Magna Charta embraced all the orders of society — 
the clergy, the aristocracy and the people. It defined the main feu- 
dal rights. But its essential clauses are those protecting personal 
liberty and property. Speedy and equal justice was promised to all ; 
trial by jury was established from this time forward; the courts 
awarded the habeas corpus privilege to all, and it was ordained that 
justice shall neither be sold, denied, nor delayed. 

The barons had been successful against King John, who repeat- 
edly violated his oath to respect the charter — at the expense of strife 
and bloodshed, however. 

Guaranty to the Faithful observance of Magna Charta. — Sounds cu- 
riously enough to a modern ear that the only guaranty to this import- 
ant charter was that of force, the right of resistance. Twenty-five 
barons were chosen as conservators of the compact. If the king vi- 
olated any article, any four might demand reparation ; if refused, it 
was carried before the rest, who might do justice by levying war on 
the king — the charter containing the provision that in such case the 
twenty-five barons, with all the commons of the land, ' £ shall distrain 
and annoy us by every means in their power — that is, by seizing our 
castles, lands and possessions, and every other mode, till the wrong 
shall be repaired to their satisfaction, saving our person and our 
queen and children. And when it is repaired, they shall obey us as 
before." Curious, says Hallam, to see common law of distress upon 
so grand a scale, and capture of king's castle treated as as anala- 
gous to impounding neighbor's horse for breaking fence. (431.) 

This guaranty of force seems to have been the principal one known 
to mediaeval ages. We find it admitted, though carefully regulated, 
among tho laws of St. Louis in France — e. g.: If a lord called on his 
vassal to march against ihe king, the vassal was first to ascertain 
from the king whether he had refused the lord justice ; if he had, 
then the vassal was to go with the lord against the sovereign. (G. 
442.) And this remedy was frequently resorted to — e. g. : William, 
Earl of Pembroke, whom we have mentioned above, invaded the 
king's (Henry III.) domains, sword in hand, to obtain satisfaction, 
and when called to account by the king, he told him that justice 
had been denied him; that he was therefore absolved from all hom- 
age, and at liberty to employ force; and told him further that : : 



112 APPENDIX. 

would not be for his (the king's) honor that he should submit to in- 
justice ; nor did Henry deny this right, however he may have sup- 
posed the earl to have misapplied it. (H. 431.) 

Henry III., son of- John, succeeds him, and is as faithless in his 
oaths to observe charter. For the purpose of obtaining money, he 
violated his oath to observance of charter five times, and every time 
barons resorted to some new device to enforce observance of same. 

Inadequacy of force as a guaranty of constitutional rights. — Evident 
that right of insurrection is a very inadequate sanction. 1st. Levy- 
ing of war produces the most lamentable consequences, and there- 
fore subject party would submit to great oppression before they 
would have recourse to so disastrous a remedy. 2d. The oppressing 
party being the government, and therefore the organized party, is 
too apt to prevail in the contest. 3d. There is a vis inertia in every 
large body which disposes it to persevere in present order of thing? 
until it is overcome by powerful impulse. Now if the vis inoiioe re' 
publicce is on the side of the king and against the people, liberty can 
never be secure. This is the case where our remedy is resistance. 
If the king commits an act of tyranny, you are obliged to overcome 
the vis inertice of the people before you can apply your remedy. But 
although this remedy was so inadequate, yet we cannot admire less 
the constancy and wisdom of the barons in their struggle against 
the crown. They were men of good heads and firm hearts; they 
fought and got their charters; they made their kings swear to main- 
tain them ; they had them read in the county courts ; and if viola- 
ted anew, they were ready always to renew the struggle, and to de- 
vise some new check on the monarch. 

Formation of Parliament only effective guaranty of the liberties of 
England. To the individual of the present day, who looks back over 
the long line of British history, it is but too manifest that the only 
permanent security to English liberty has been furnished by the 
gradual development of tho parliament with its controlling powers. 
So soon as the powers of this body are acknowledged by both peo- 
ple and king, it became necessary to secure the action of parliament 
before the king could oppress; consequently the vis inertia* was now 
in favor of liberty. 

William the Conquerer only called together the great barons. As 
the lesser barons separated from the king's council, they merged 
into county population, and united with the freeholders in attend- 
ing to business of county. John, in order successfully to oppose 
barons, has these summoned as representatives of the shire or coun- 
ty, but they united firmly with the barons against the king. 

During whole reign of Henry III. struggle between barons and 
king continued, each trying to favor these county representatives, 
until finally the principle was recognized that representation and 
taxation must go together. Finally barons got the ascednancy. 
Leicester heads the malcontent party; his victory at Lewees puts 
king and his son in his possession, and makes him ruler of the 



APPENDIX. 113 

kingdom. Forgets that a coalition' of the barons had won the vic- 
tory ; refuses to them any share of the ransom money. This put a 
counter revolution in motion to destroy Leicester's power. To sus- 
tain himself, when it became necessary to call a parliament, Leices- 
ter ordered the cities and some of the principal towns and boroughs 
to send as burgesses two representatives each. This was due to the 
growing importance of commerce and the trades — hardly then to be 
called manufacturing establishments. Commerce had flourished un- 
der Anglo-Saxon rule; under Norman rule had declined, and the 
places now to be represented by burgesses were commercial and 
trade centers. As they became more wealthy, their representation 
became a necessity, as they could not be taxed unless represented. 
The burgesses, however, or representatives of coporate cities and 
towns, refused to pay the imposts or custom dues, set their com- 
merce at liberty, aided the barons in overthrowing the Leicester 
government, £nd established the kingly. Before this time the kings 
employed the judges on the circuits to levy contributions on the 
cities, and in times of First and Second Henrys the sheriffs collected 
these contributions. 

In 1295 Edward was engaged in war with France, and greatly in 
want of men and money. Philip le Bel was threatening invasion of 
England ; here all interests Were concerned. Hence parliament, the 
fullest that had ever been called. Two assemblies met — one eccle- 
siastic, other lay. In former were archbishops, bishops, sixty-seven 
abbots, the grand masters of three religious orders, as also deputies 
from the chapters and inferior clergy. These deputies were ordered 
to get instructions from their constituents before they came, in or- 
der to be able to act decisively in regard to means for defence of 
kingdom. This whole body was about 160. [490.] In the lay 
parliament, there were present forty-nine barons, two knights from 
each county, and two burgesses from each town ; and the writs di- 
rected the sheriffs to take care that these deputies should get full 
powers from their constituents, that the business of parliament might 
be dispatched without delay. One hundred and twenty towns re- 
ceived their summons. The barons and deputies of counties voted 
one-eleventh of their movables to the king ; the burgesses one-sev- 
enth ; and the clergy, after a long struggle, gave one-tenth of their 
ecclesiastical revenues. 

From this time forward parliament was definitely established. 
We know of its convocation at least eleven times in the twelve last 
years of Edward I., and almost every time the deputies from the 
cities and counties were in attendance. The principle that no class 
could be taxed without its consent was settled. In the parliament 
(1299) writs were directed to the two chancellors of the universities 
of Oxford and Cambridge, to order them to send four or five depu- 
ties from Oxford, and two or three from Cambridge, for the king 
wanted their money, as well as their counsel. 

Garte fixes the organization of parliament in two separate houses 



1 .14 APPEND IX._ » 

in the seventeenth year of Edward III. (1344.) Parliamentary his- 
tory fixes it in the sixth of this monarch ; Hailam in the first (Ed- 
ward III.] if not the 8th' year of Edward II. This, diversity occas- 
ioned by the various circumstances regarded as evidence of the sep- 
aration into two houses. Sometimes this organization inferred from 
county and city deputies being in same house, sometimes from dis- 
cussion together, sometimes from uniting their votes on the same 
question, etc. Instead of looking for date precise, best to cite 
causes which led to it. At first all the barons who alone were in 
parliament of course sat together. When were distinguished into 
first and second dignity, still all sat together. When the knights 
of shires came to parliament always sat with the barons, for they 
were mainly, as we have seen, the deputies of the inferior barons, 
who had gradually disappeared from parliament. 

When the burgesses came they were a new order, riot at all feu- 
dal in character, and were thrown into a body to themselves, which 
is proved by votes given for subsidies, e.g., in 1275 burgesses alone 
granted to the king a duty on exportation of wool and skins. In 
1295 they grant one-seventh of their movables, whilst clergy give 
one tenth and barons and knights one eleventh, here are three dis- 
tinct bodies. This distinction kept up until parliament of 1333 un- 
der Edward III. Barons and knights vote one fifteenth, the bur- 
gesses one tenth. Here, although the sums granted by the first two 
classes were same, the registers of parliament say that the knights 
sat with the burgesses, and not with the barons. In 1345 the 
knights vote two fifteenths of their movables, the burgesses one, 
and the barons nothing, because 'they are to follow him to war. 
Here, then, it seems the knights have separated from the barons, 
although yet distinct from the burgesses. [504.] In 1347 the com- 
mons without distinction vote two-fifteenths to be raised in two 
years. This the first undoubted case not only of knights and bur- 
gesses sitting together, but voting together, which soon afterward 
became the general custom. 

Thus will it be seen, by reference to parliamentary history, that 
for about first 80 years after the burgesses went to parliament they 
sat by themselves, whilst the barons and county delegates were 
united. The county delegates were much more respected than the 
city, were much oftener called to parliament, because they were 
strictly feudal in character. In all commercial matters the cities 
were consulted exclusively. When the whole parliament sat in 
same place, all the parts were generally in the same house, the ba- 
rons and knights in the upper story and the burgesses in the lower. 
Such was the tendency to separation of interests at first, that even 
the burgesses sometimes divided, those from the royal domain form- 
ing a class distinct from the others. Not to. wonder, then, that the 
high barons and county delegates should separate. We find the 
latter alone consulted about the alienation of fiefs, which resulted 
in the statute, Quia Emptores Terrorum, and afterward their separa- 



I 

APPENDIX. I I 5 

tion became more and more frequent, till at last it became perma- 
nent. When this happened there were many reasons for union with 
the burgesses. 

General causes which produced the union of the burgesses and 
county delegates into one body — the commons: 1st.. They came to 
parliament by same kind of right, election, and, consequently, both 
acted not for themselves, but for their constituents. 2d. Their in- 
terests were similar. There must have been great community of in- 
terest between the country and its towns. 3d. The county courts 
were the centers where the whole county population met to transact 
business, often the townspeople did their business in that court like- 
wise, and even sometimes held their elections there. Besides this, 
the country courts had a wonderful influence in wearing away all 
the aristocratic differences in the country population, because of the 
equality of rights which all the freedholders possessed in court, and 
because they here held their consultations, debated their interests, 
and concerted their measures in common. As the country popula- 
tion became more democratic, it lost its feudal character, and be- 
came more assimilated to the cities. 4th. Lastly, the barons formed 
the king's council and courts, besides sitting in parliament. They 
would therefore often be convened with the knights, were a sort of 
permanent branch, always concerned in the exercise of the kingly 
power. Whereas the knights and burgesses went on the business of 
their respective constituents alone, and did not meddle with central 
power farther than as it immediately affected their constituents. 
These were main reasons which brought the burgesses and knights 
together.- 

Concurrence of both houses becomes necessary to legislation. 
Main object of calling burgesses and even knights was to get 
money of them, and as different interests would give differently, so 
they acted apart. But it is in the nature of such bodies when called 
together to increase gradually the spheres of their action. Not only 
to determine whether they will give this Or that subsidy demanded 
of them, but to recommend certain things to the king, to make pe- 
titions, to call for changes in the laws, etc., etc. Thus their action 
becomes more and more general, and, consequently, while special 
interests and special actions tended to divide the body into different 
parts, these general interests and general actions would have a ten- ' 
dency to unite, hence we have seen formation of house of commons 
by knights and burgesses. Again, if king in passing laws deemed 
the interests of the commons to be at all concerned, he would nac- 
urally consult them, ask their advice, etc. Or, if the commons 
wanted any laws changed they would petition and press for change, 
etc. And such monarchs as the Edwards soon saw that it was best 
to have advice and concurrence of all to their general measures, for 
then all would be more willing to vote money. Edward III. even 
consulted his parliaments as to war and peace, in order the more 
gracefully to ask for the supplies. In this manner it became, by de- 



1 1 6 APPENDIX ERRATA. * 

grees, before the end of the long reign of Edward III., a settled 
practice for both houses to concur in the framing of all laws, the 
commons, who before this reign were rarely mentioned in the enact- 
ing clause, were now as rarely omitted. Laws were declared to be 
made at the request of the commons, and by the assent of the lords 
and prelates; in fact, it is evident from the rolls of parliament that 
statutes were almost always founded on their petition. (H. 379.) 
Here, then, we have the complete formation of the British parlia- 
ment into lords and commons, with joint concurrence necessary to 
all legislation. 



ERRATA. 



On page 24, for anon, read more. 

On page 28, 2d line from bottom, for system, read citizen. 
On page 36, in 3d line from bottom, for constituted, read 
constructed. 

On page 37, for repudiation, read i-epresentation. 
On page 60, for depressed, read dissevered. 
On page 64, for transitive, read transition. 
On page 78, for persons, read purposes. 



